DW BUREAU / NEW DELHI Appreciating Punjab's Covid micro-containment and house-to-house surveillance strategy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked all other states to adopt the model, which was helping Punjab successfully control the spread of the pandemic to a significant extent. The Prime Minister intervened as Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh was describing the state's model to combat Covid and suggested that all states should follow the same strategic approach to effectively counter Covid. The Prime Minister was conducting a Video Conference meeting with chief ministers of Punjab and some other states, as part of his scheduled 2-day interactions to review the Covid situation and management strategies of all the states. He will be holding a similar meeting with the chief ministers of the other states tomorrow. During the meeting, Captain Amarinder Singh suggested to the Prime Minister to set up a Group, which should include a few chief ministers, to discuss and formulate a coordinated Centre-State response to the devastating impact of Covid on the economy and governments across the country. During a Video Conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was joined by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Punjab Chief Minister requested that the Centre should work closely with the states to ease the distress caused by the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown. While living with Covid was the new normal since the lockdown could not continue indefinitely as the cycle of economy, once broken, takes a long time to restart, the need of the hour was to take care of both lives and livelihoods, as the Prime Minister had himself said in his VC in April, the Chief Minister pointed out. Captain Amarinder recalled that when, in early April, he had said that Covid could go on till September, he had been called an alarmist by some people. But with experts now warning that the pandemic could continue even beyond September, it was important to learnt to co-exist with it and cope with it better, he stressed, underlining the need for the central and state governments to work in close coordination for this. Calling for urgent steps to mitigate Punjab's financial stress, the Chief Minister said a detailed memorandum had already been sent to the Government of India, listing out the impact of Covid-19 and also seeking fiscal and non-fiscal assistance. Even as he thanked the Prime Minister and Finance Minister for the release of GST payment of around Rs 2800 crore in early June, Captain Amarinder said while he appreciated that the Government of India (GoI) was also under financial stress, he had to request for release of the state's pending share of taxes to tide over the fiscal crisis. The crisis in Punjab was likely to be acute with around Rs 25,000-30,000 crore shortfall in revenue collection on various counts, he said. Even though Punjab's contribution to the all-India cases was less tha one per cent (at 3140 cases) at present, with a mortality rate of 2.1 per cent and recovery rate of 75 per cent, the curve was rising as a result of the inbound travellers and the easing of restrictions and more mixing of people, the Chief Minister said, giving a status update on the Covid situation prevailing in the state. Emphasising the need for more tests, despite the current 5527 tests per million in Punjab being higher than the all India average of 4088, Captain Amarinder reiterated his request to the Prime Minister to direct GoI institutions in Chandigarh and Punjab to increase testing capacity. (editor@dailyworld.in)