Jharkhand's frontline health workers who;ve been working round-the-clock since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 will be provided a month's extra pay, state health minister Banna Gupta announced in the Assembly on Friday.

Gupta was responding to a question by BJP MLA Amar Kumar Bauri who wanted to know during Question Hour if the state government had provided any special financial assistance to lakhs of frontline health workers who have been working during the pandemic since last year.

“The state government has decided to provided one month’s extra pay to all frontline medical workers for their services. The health department is currently in the process of finalising the modalities and is also identifying frontline workers who deserve to be covered under this special scheme. Soon, we will unveil the final blueprint to provide them extra pay of one month for their exemplary works," the minister said.

Notably, many other states have already provided a slew of special incentives to frontline workers for their contribution during the pandemic.

BJP MLA from Dhanbad Raj Sinha wanted to know about central assistance the state government had received in terms of PPE kits and other medical aids so far. Taking a jibe at the BJP-led government in the Centre, the state health minister responded, “Yes, the Union government provided us PPEs and other kits but they were untimely and too few in number. However, despite the challenges, the state government succeeded in handling the Covid-19 situation much better than many other states. In the coming days too, we hope we all will work together to keep the momentum going.”

Congress MLA from Poriyahat Pradeep Yadav raised a question in the Assembly about the fate of the nursing college in his home district—Godda. “Decks have been cleared and the state government is gearing up to launch the first batch from October this year,” replied Gupta.