Donations should be voluntary :: NPF

Kohima, 29th March, 2020

Press Communique

As the whole world, including the Nagaland state is going through a lock-down enforced because of the pandemic Novel Corona virus – Covid-19, the Naga People’s Front expressed immense gratitude to the Almighty that as yet, there has been no Covid-19 positive case reported or detected in the state of Nagaland.

The party fully acknowledged and appreciated the selfless effort that is being rendered by the health-care community and the police personnel towards preventing the outbreak of the disease in the state. However, the Naga People’s Front expressed its concern over the preparedness by the State Government and asked the theory of salary deduction from the public servants.

While the setting up of the CM Relief fund is a laudable initiative, providing avenue to people from all walks of life to contribute towards the welfare of the society, the donations should be voluntary and nobody should be coerced into contributing to the fund, which is tantamount to extortion.

The NPF is appalled by the decision of the PDA Government to deduct one-day wages from the employees of certain departments, especially from the police personnel as the party is of the strong view that police personnel should come within the parameter of ‘Frontline Workers’ to combat the dreaded global pandemic.

Even though entire State is under total lockdown, the assignments and duties of the police personnel has in no way lessen and therefore their welfare has to be taken into consideration.

The NPF feels that special incentives to the Sanitation Workers, Doctors and Nurses and any other individuals or agencies who are engage in combating the dreaded global pandemic in Nagaland should be awarded by the Government of the day rather than deducting their salaries.

The party also expressed concern over the reported shortage of some essential commodities including rice in many districts of the State. It is infact disheartening to note that the PDA Government is asking the common people to deposit three months in advance to get their share of rice.

This kind of policy and approach on the part of the PDA Govt. is very shallow and unthinkable when people are going through a very rough weather owing to complete lockdown. The NPF suggest that the State Govt. may use the Rs. 17 (seventeen) Crore which they have recently withdrawn from the VDB matching grant fund for essential commodities and later on reimburse from the Relief Funding on COVID-19 from the Central Government.

The party urged the Government of the day to ensure sufficiency of supply of essential commodities to the common people. The party also urged the Govt. of the day to utilize various Govt. revenues including revenue from Goods and Services Tax (GST), which tunes to Crores of rupees at this critical juncture instead of begging from the poor public and showing helplessness on the pretext of paucity of fund.

On one hand, the Government keeps claiming that the State is fully prepared to tackle COVID-19 and on the other hand, if we see the ground reality everything is in a shamble without the required facilities.

The Govt. of the day is expected to be more transparent in tackling COVID-19 as the lives of the citizens of Nagaland cannot be put at risk due to negligence of the Government. Fortunately, no case of COVID-19 had been reported so far in Nagaland otherwise if there is/was such cases what would have happen to us at this rate of preparedness of the Govt. of the day?

Issued by:
Press Bureau,
Naga People’s Front,
Central Headquarters,
Kohima: Nagaland.