The Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Pritam Singh has slammed the Uttarakhand Government for not paying a single rupee to the village Pradhans as promised by it for quarantine and care of the returning migrants. Addressing media persons here on Wednesday, the PCC president said that the state government had announced that a sum of Rs 10,000 would be paid to every village Pradhan for making necessary arrangements for quarantining the returning migrants. “I have personally visited many villages recently and talked to the Pradhans and all of them denied receiving any kind of financial help from the State Government.

The condition of Pradhans is very pathetic and they are not in a position to discharge the task handed over to them. When a congress delegation met the Chief Secretary on Tuesday, he accepted that no money is paid to Pradhans. The CS said that the money would be reimbursed to the Pradhans. The Congress demands that the money should be paid in advance as people have no faith in the assurance of this government,’’ he said.

The PCC president said that instead of keeping the returning migrants at base camps, the state government adopted a faulty system sending all migrants back to their villages after thermally scanning the returnees.

The Government should have made arrangements at base camps and when the capacity of these camps was achieved, the state government should have quarantined the returnees at district, tehsil and block headquarters.

Singh claimed that by sending the returnee to their villages, the state government has increased the threat of Covid-19 in the villages.

The general secretary organisation, Vijay Saraswat, former MLA Rajkumar and spokesperson Garima Dassauni were present on the occasion.