Three children in Pimpri-Chinchwad have lost both parents to Covid-19 while 253 have lost either father or mother since the beginning of the pandemic last year, a civic body survey revealed.
Of the 253, 212 children lost their father and 41 their mother. Also, approximately 2000 women were widowed due to Covid-19, the survey by Pimpri-Chinchwad Municipal Corporation (PCMC) found.
Additional municipal commissioner Ulhas Jagtap, who headed the committee for this survey, said, “The committee was appointed by PCMC commissioner on the directions of the district collector. We have sent the report to the district collector. As and when we get more information, we will update it and send it to the collector,” he said.
Jagtap said PCMC would rehabilitate the three children who have been orphaned and help the other children under various schemes of the women and child welfare department.
Additional municipal commissioner Vikas Dhakane said under welfare schemes of the women and child welfare department, widowed women would get Rs 10,000 as one-time aid. “However, we are trying to see if we can pay them Rs 25,000 to one lakh. We will need the state government’s permission for this,” he said.
Pimpri-Chinchwad so far has had 2,53,713 Covid-19 patients. Of the 4208 deaths, 60 per cent are men. The case fatality rate (deaths per 100 cases) among men is 1.60 and among women 1.30.
“A majority of men who died of Covid-19 are in the 30 plus age group. Many of them are married men. We estimated that more than 2000 women lost their husbands,” said health department officials.
Health officials said from June 5 to 12, there were more recoveries than new cases. “As many as 2600 patients recovered during this period while 1970 were infected. Every day, we are registering less than 300 cases this month. In March and April, the number of daily cases was between 2000 to 3000,” officials said.
– Stay updated with the latest Pune news. Follow Express Pune on Twitter here and on Facebook here. You can also join our Express Pune Telegram channel here.
