Tamil Nadu Chief Minister's Public Relief Fund (CMPRF) has been piled up with donations from people of all walks of life as they extend their contributions to support the state government in fighting the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Chief Minister MK Stalin has appealed to the public to aid the government financially last week in its efforts to arrest the spread and augment the medical infrastructure in the state. 

Ever since he announced, hundreds of people have lent their contributions to the relief fund either by meeting the Chief Minister directly or through online. Dozens of Kollywood celebrities including Rajinikanth, Ajith, Suriya, and Vikram, and notable institutions had kept their financial support to the government by lending money to the state coffers. In line with that, Billroth Hospitals in Chennai had on Wednesday donated to the relief fund. 

Billroth Hospitals is one of the popular healthcare institutions in Chennai. On Wednesday, Dr Kalpana Rajesh, who is the Chief Executive Officer of Billroth Hospitals, has met Chief Minister MK Stalin at the Chief Secretariat and handed over a cheque for Rs 50 lakhs as the donation to the relief fund to fight COVID-19 on behalf of the Billroth Hospitals. 

Apart from the notable personalities, several children and a group of transgender people in Chennai had also donated to the relief fund. During his announcement of appealing for donations, the Chief Minister asserted that transparency will be observed in the utilization of the fund and the donations will be rooted only for the Covid-related treatment. The donors can also avail of tax exemptions for the donations. 

On Tuesday, the government has revealed that the CMPRF has received Rs 69 crore as donations as of Monday. Of Rs 69 crore, Rs 39.56 crore was handed over directly to the Chief Minister and cabinet ministers while the rest of Rs 29.44 crore has been made through online transactions. The reports say that the Tamil diaspora, Tamil people living overseas, had significantly contributed to the relief fund.

It must be noted that on Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu government has allocated Rs 50 crore from the CMPRF to procure life-saving drugs to treat COVID-19 patients and get liquid oxygen from other states. The allocation has been made from the donation to the relief fund. While Rs 25 crore was utilized to procure Remdesivir drug and other lifesaving drugs used for the treatment of the Corona hit patients, Rs 25 crore was released to procure containers for transporting liquid medical oxygen from other states.