The Maharashtra government today announced a “corona free village” contest keeping an aim to encourage people to contain the spread of coronavirus in the rural areas of the state.
Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray recently lauded efforts made by some villages to stem the spread of the viral infection and announced the “My Village Corona Free” initiative.
The chief minister, state Rural Development Minister Hasan Mushrif announced this initiative and urged people to be a part of “corona free village” contest, said a statement. It is also said that prizes will be given to three village panchayats who are doing good work in COVID-19 management in each revenue division.
The first prize will be of Rs 50 lakh, second of Rs 25 lakh and third of Rs 15 lakh, the minister said. There will be a total of 18 prizes as there are six revenue divisions in the state. However, the total prize money is Rs 5.4 crore, he added.
An additional amount equivalent to the prize money as an encouragement also will be given to the villages which will win the competition, and it will be used for development works in those villages, said the minister. He said, on 22 criteria the participating villages will be judged and a committee will be set up to judge the villages.
Thackeray in a virtual address on Sunday praised Ruturaj Deshmukh (21) who is the youngest sarpanch in Maharashtra, and his task force to keep their Ghatne village in Solapur district free of coronavirus.
On Tuesday, Maharashtra recorded 14,123 new COVID-19 cases, taking the infection tally to 57,61,015, while 477 fresh deaths and another 377 deaths previously unreported pushed the fatality count to 96,198, as per official data.