Donations pour in from various quarters for CM’s Public Relief Fund

Contributions continued to pour in for the Chief Minister’s Public Relief Fund to battle COVID-19.

SASTRA Deemed University Chancellor R. Sethuraman handed over ₹1 crore to Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on Friday.

A similar sum of ₹1 crore was donated by Apex Laboratories CMD S.S. Vanangamudi; KPR Mills, Coimbatore, executive director C.R. Anandhakrishnan; Saveetha deemed university Chancellor N.M. Veeraiyan; Lalitha Jewellery MD M. Kiran Kumar; Kovai Medical Centre and Hospital executive director Arun N. Palaniswami; and Tamil Nadu Olympic Association president N. Ramachandran, along with Chennai Central MP Dayanidhi Maran.

Naruvi Hospitals, Vellore, chairman G. V. Sampath, actor Ajith Kumar, CSI Bishops of Madras represented by S. George Stephen and All India Bank Employees Association represented by its general secretary C.H. Venkatachalam donated a sum of ₹25 lakh each. DMDK president Vijayakant said the party would be donating ₹10 lakh. Many others also contributed to the fund.

SASTRA had earlier handed over six ventilators to the Thanjavur Medical College Hospital and the ESIC Hospital, Chennai, along with oxygen concentrators and flowmeters worth ₹55 lakh. It is sourcing 25 more oxygen concentrators which would be handed over to the State government soon, a press release said.

Ramco Cement has commissioned an oxygen plant on the factory premises located at Ramasamy Raja Nagar in Virudhunagar. In a press release, it said the medical oxygen plant established at a cost of ₹50 lakh had a capacity to produce 48 numbers of oxygen cylinders per day and would help in serving the government hospitals in Rajapalayam, Virudhunagar, Sivakasi, Aruppukottai and Sattur areas. The plant was inaugurated by Virudhunagar Collector R. Kannan on Friday in the presence of State Ministers K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran and Thangam Thennarasu.

TAFE Group would be assisting the State government by donating 500 oxygen concentrators for government hospitals as part of which 50 oxygen concentrators have already been distributed. TAFE group chairman T.R. Kesavan met the Chief Minister and presented the letter at the Secretariat. The members of the Association of University Teachers, comprising more than 3,000 teachers, have decided to donate one day’s pay to the relief fund.