The Madhya Pradesh government has decided to transfer Rs 700 crore which were set aside for the International Indian Film Academy Awards 2020 (IIFA) ceremonies and Indore's Chief Minister Relief Fund to help India in its fight against the deadly pandemic coronavirus.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has said that people who had committed funds for the International Indian Film Academy Awards 2020 will be used to fight Covid 19.
Chouhan said that he believed that IIFA was nothing more than a 'tamasha'- that was not required here in the state. However, those who have committed fund to organize the event- will now be used to fight Covid 19. CM said that it was reported that people had committed Rs 40 crore for IIFA award programme.
IIFA 2020 was scheduled in Indore in the month of March and the decision was made by the then Kamal Nath government.
However, after the fall of Kamal Nath-led Congress government and the pandemic coronavirus outbreak, the event had to be cancelled.
Former CM had said that the event would have taken the state to the far corners of the world as they had planned to telecast the program in 90 countries with 700 crores in hand.
Chouhan had opposed Kamal Nath's idea of this huge expenditure and rather believed such an amount should be used for food relief and waving off the debts of farmers.
The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday said that a total of 5,865 confirmed cases of novel coronavirus have been reported so far in the country. Of these, 5,218 are active cases. The death toll from COVID-19 exceeded 90,000 worldwide on Thursday, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
