SHILLONG, June 28: The Meghalaya government, criticised last year for spending Rs 399 crore on COVID-related activities, has been elusive about providing the expenditure details this year.
Reacting to a query on the expenditure, Chief minister Conrad K. Sangma said the state has spent less on COVID-19 this year than during the first wave.
He did not provide any details of the expenditure. He had earlier said he had asked the officials concerned to provide him with the details.
On Monday, the Chief Minister said Rs 60-70 crore was spent on labourers last year as well as on people living outside, bringing them back to the state and taking care of their expenses during the quarantine period.
“All these activities were unexpected and the decisions taken were not easy but we kept a simple point in our mind that whatever may be the situation we had to help our people as much as possible,” Sangma said.
Many had ridiculed the government’s claim of spending almost Rs 400 crore last year as the other north-eastern states with more cases than Meghalaya had spent less than Rs 100 crore.
“Last year, the expenditure was more than Rs 400 crore but this year it has not gone to that level. We have tried to minimise the expenditure by balancing various aspects,” Sangma said.
Meanwhile, the government said there are about 90,000 vaccines available and the state will be receiving 40,000 doses in two to three days.
Officials said Meghalaya will have a total of 2 lakh doses of COVID-19 vaccine within the next 10 days and the Centre will provide vaccines as per the state’s usage.
