Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow unconditional borrowing under the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act for one year to fight COVID-19 pandemic besides clearing the hefty amount that the Centre owes to the state. Banerjee also urged the Centre to provide more High Flow Nasal Cannula and ventilators to fight the pandemic. The Centre, the Chief Minister also said, should point to the vaccine to be procured and used and issue guidelines in this regard. Banerjees requests came during the Prime Ministers video conference with Chief Ministers of 10 states including Bengal over the present pandemic situation. The timing is crucial as the Centre has been depriving the state by not clearing the dues despite the Chief Ministers repeated requests. Earlier, during her interaction with the Prime Minister on the day of the inauguration of ICMRs laboratory on July 27, Banerjee had put forward the issue of clearing Rs 53,000 crore including Rs 4,135 crore GST compensation that the Centre owes to the state. She had then requested him to withdraw all conditions on borrowing as per the increased FRBM limit of the entire 5 percent. As nothing had materialised since then, Banerjee on Tuesday urged the Prime Minister to give relaxation at least for a year on conditions of borrowing against the FRBM Act and once again requested to clear the legitimate dues as it will help to further augment the health infrastructure to fight the disease mainly when Modi has stated that "containment, contact tracing and surveillance are the most effective weapons in this battle". Banerjee stated that her government is providing completely free-of-cost treatment and ambulance service besides providing health coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family by bringing 7.5 crore people under the coverage of Swastha Sathi card. At the same time, free ration is being given to 10 crore people of the state. Banerjee also raised the issue of the death audit during the interaction with the Prime Minister. She stated: "At the initial phase of the COVID-19, we had emphasised on death audits but now it is vindicated that comorbidity is an important element in COVID-19 deaths. Eighty-nine percent of COVID-19 deaths in our state were due to comorbidities like diabetes, cancer, hypertension, cardiac disease, etc." At the same time, the state has developed the unique centrally real-time patient monitoring mechanism — COVID-19 Patient Management System (CPMS). It is helping to ensure immediate medical attention to critical patients with the assistance of experts. Meanwhile, the COVID-19 tally in Bengal breached the one lakh-mark on Tuesday to reach 1,01,390 after 2,931 new infections were reported, the state Health department said. The death toll mounted to 2,149 with 49 fresh fatalities, the department said in a bulletin. In the last 24 hours, 27,015 samples have been tested in the state.

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