Abhijit Banerjee on Bengal's expert panel

Kolkata, April 6 (IANS) West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee government on Monday roped in Nobel laureate economist Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee as a member of newly formed Global Advisory Board for a Covid-19 Response Policy in the state.Announcing the formation of the expert committee, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said it would advise on the state's economic growth by tackling coronavirus pandemic.Other members of the committee are medicos Swarup Sarkar, Abhijit Chwodhury and Sukumar Mukherjee.The committee would advise her on limiting the state's financial losses due to the lockdown.Briefing mediapersons at the state Secretariat Nabanna, the Chief Minister said the state presently has 61 active Covid-19 patients. The death count stood at two, while 13 persons have recovered."As many as 55 of them are members of seven families. More than 99 per cent of the affected have foreign connections," she said.She said 11 family members of a Kalimpong woman who died of Covid-19 at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital have tested positive for the dreaded virus.Another 11 persons who attended a marriage ceremony in Egra of East Midnapore district have also tested positive.
--IANS ssp/tsb