As the number of corona cases go unabated in Kurnool, the state government on Thursday sacked municipal commissioner Ravindra Babu. The government has issued an notfication to this effect on Thursday.
The government has appointed IAS officer D K Balaji replacing Ravindra Babu. According to sources, Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy was miffed with Ravindra Babu over his handling of the corona situation in Kurnool which has witnessed surge in the corona positive cases.
This is the second incident in which the state government had cracked a whip against the municipal chief. Earlier,the state government placed Nagari Municipal Commissioner K Venkatrami Reddy under suspension for his ‘adverse comments’ on the government with regard to Covid-19 crisis. K Venkatrami Reddy criticized the government for blocking the accounts and not supplying medical equipment such as masks, PPEs and gloves.
Earlier in the day, Jagan on Thursday reviewed the Covid-19 situation in the state at a meeting with officials on Thursday and directed them to identify locations for sufficient quarantine facilities and make provisions for critical care in case the disease spreads further.
At the meeting with all ministries and departments concerned, he said that in view of growing cases in Kurnool, he asked the officials to review the quarantine facilities and isolation wards in hospitals. Kurnool continues to have highest number of cases at 386, followed by Guntur and Krishna with 287 and 240 cases respectively. The CM called for increasing the number of Covid-19 tests as part of the offensive against the pandemic. Recently, the state government has taken a decision to convert the GGH in Kurnool into a Covid-19 hospital.
At the CM’s review meeting, Health Minister Alla Nani and principal secretary special (health) Jawahar Reddy made a presentation about the current scenario and action taken by the health ministry and other supporting ministries regarding preparedness and response to covid-19.
Addressing the chief minister, the ministers gave an overview of the situation staing that more than 94,558 testing was done till now. Further, an additonal 68,000 rapid tests were conducted. For every 10 lakh population, the state was conducting around 1,771 tests. The positve rate of corona cases in Andhra Pradesh is 1.48 per cent compared to 4 per cent average in the country.
The state government confirmed 71 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, taking the total in the state to 1,403 and 31 deaths. Andhra Pradesh has 2.21 per cent mortality rate compared to 3.26 per cent mortality nationally, the ministers told the Chief Minister.
