Mumbai Mar 31 PTI Maharashtra Minister of State for Food Drugs Administration FDA Rajendra Yadravkar has said he has ordered his departments officials to crackdown on chemists selling medicines without prescription from a doctorTalking to PTI he said The orders were given yesterday in Aurangabad after I received a complaint about sale of drugs from a local pharmacist without a formal prescription of a doctor Such practices are against the law and should be banned I have asked FDA officials to carry out searches and cross verification of sale of drugs from pharmacies in the state The FDA will also prod drug sellers to demand prescription before selling medicines he saidThere have been some cases where scheduled drugs which are not easily available and are allowed to be purchased only if prescribed by a physician were sold across the counter at pharmacies the minister saidNo pharmacist was demanding prescription for such drugs It was shocking and serious as well the minister saidYadravkar said he has sought a primary report in the next 8 days from FDA officials on action taken to curb the practice of selling drugs without prescriptionIt will give us some idea about ground reality on sale of drugs During the 2021-22 fiscal FDA officials had collected Rs 550 crore as fine for violation of different norms he said PTI ND RSY RSY

Mumbai Mar 26 PTI Mumbai on Saturday recorded 33 new cases of coronavirus that raised the tally of infections in the city to 1057786 an official from the Brihanmumbai Corporation said The city did not report a single casualty in the last 24 hours keeping the toll steady at 19558 he said As many as 29 patients were discharged from hospitals during the day raising the count of recoveries to 1037955 keeping the recovery rate at 98 per cent the official said adding that the city is now left with 252 active cases As per the civic data with the addition of 12967 swab samples tested in the last 24 hours the number of tests conducted in the city reached 16563937 There are no containment zones and no buildings are currently sealed in the city he added PTI ND ARU ARU

Mumbai Mar 24 PTI Refuting the allegations of Opposition that the erstwhile NCP-Congress government in Maharashtra had sold sugar mills at undervalued rates deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday claimed in the Legislative Council that their auctions were carried out as per court orders and there were no irregularities in the entire processPawar who also holds the finance portfolio countered the allegations in this regard levelled by Leader of Opposition in the Council Pravin Darekar of the BJP on WednesdayThe earlier state government auctioned sugar mills after court orders Jarandeshwar sugar mill was sold for Rs 65 crore when its actual valuation was Rs 39 crore The state even refused to stand as a guarantor as it wanted the mills to sustain on their own Multiple people tried to revive the mill but they could not do so he saidThe NCP-Congress coalition was in power in the state from 1999 to 2014When Harshwardhan Patil was the cooperation minister a factory was sold for Rs 3 crore and a mill in Barshiv was sold for Rs 28 crore but no one is talking about them taunted PawarPatil was a senior Congress leader who joined the BJP in 2019 PTI ND RSY RSY

Mumbai Mar 24 PTI The Maharashtra government has done more to help farmers than the Centre when they suffered crop losses due to cyclones erratic weather conditions and drought-like situations state minister Vijay Wadettiwar said in the Legislative Council on ThursdayThe Minister for Relief and Rehabilitation said the Centre has given much less financial assistance than it had promised to the state to help distressed farmersSpeaking in the Council Wadettiwar said The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi government has disbursed around Rs 10381 crore to farmers as aid in the last two years However the Union government has given much less to the state than it had promised We had even sent a proposal to the Union government to increase the rates in SDRF State Disaster Response Fund reserves because the frequency of crops getting damaged has increased But there has been no response to the letter he said PTI ND RSY RSY

Mumbai Mar 19 PTI Maharashtra on Saturday reported less than 100 new coronavirus infections for the first time since April 2020 the beginning of the pandemic The state recorded 97 new cases and one death taking the case tally to 7872300 and death toll to 143766 a health department official said On April 3 2020 the state had reported 67 new infections The new daily cases then climbed into three digits and more So far 7723005 people have recovered from the infection in Maharashtra including 251 during the day leaving the state with an active caseload of 1525 The states recovery rate is 9810 per cent and fatality rate is 182 per cent With 23710 samples being examined since previous evening the number of coronavirus tests carried out in Maharashtra so far went up to 78909115 The Mumbai Metropolitan Region comprising Mumbai and satellite towns reported 37 new cases during the day while the Pune circle which covers Pune Satara and Solapur districts saw 33 new cases The lone death took place in Satara district Coronavirus figures of Maharashtra are as follows Total cases 7872300 fresh cases 97 death toll 143766 total recoveries 7723005 active cases 1525 total tests 78909115 PTI ND BNM KRK KRK

Mumbai Feb 23 PTI Mumbai recorded no daily deaths due to COVID-19 on Wednesday for the fifth time in February while 168 more people tested positive for the coronavirus infection said the city civic bodyEarlier zero coronavirus deaths were reported on February 15 16 17 and 20 in the metropolisWith addition of new COVID-19 infections the citys caseload increased to 1055960 while the death toll remained unchanged at 16690 said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC in a bulletinOn Tuesday Mumbai had reported 135 cases and two deathsAlso 255 patients were discharged during the day taking the number of recovered cases to 1035169 the BMC saidThe city now has 1228 active casesThe coronavirus recovery rate of Mumbai now stands at 98 per cent while the case doubling rate has increased to 3758 the bulletin saidAt present there are no active containment zones or sealed buildings in the metropolis it added PTI ND RSY RSY

Mumbai Jan 27 PTI Mumbai on Thursday recorded 1384 fresh cases of COVID-19 down from 1858 a day ago while 12 more people died due to complications related to the infection the city civic body saidWith this the overall number of COVID-19 cases in the Maharashtra capital rose to 1041747 while the toll increased to 16581 the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation BMC said in a bulletinOut of the 12 coronavirus patients who died in the last 24 hours 11 were above 60 years of age it saidOn Wednesday the city had recorded 1858 coronavirus infections and 13 deaths The city has been reporting fewer than 2000 cases for the last four daysOut of the new patients only 184 were hospitalized the civic body saidAlso 5686 patients were discharged during the day following recovery the bulletin saidWith this the number of recovered cases crossed the 10-lakh mark to stand at 1004384 the BMC saidThere are now 18040 active cases of COVID-19 in the cityAs many as 42570 new coronavirus tests were conducted in Mumbai taking their cumulative count to 15130831 the bulletin saidThe coronavirus recovery rate in the city is 96 per cent while the case doubling rate has further improved to 194 days it saidWhile there are no containment zones in the city 28 buildings have been sealed after more than five patients of COVID-19 were found in each of them the civic body saidMumbai had logged 20971 COVID-19 cases on January 7 2022 the highest in a day since the pandemic broke out in March 2020Last year the metropolis had reported the highest one-day cases at 11163 on April 4 during the second wave of the pandemic PTI ND RSY RSY

Mumbai Jan 21 PTI Veteran journalist and former group editor of Lokmat Media Dinkar Raikar died of a prolonged illness at a private hospital here in the early hours of Friday family sources said Raikar 79 is survived by his wife a son and a daughter Raikar had tested positive for COVID-19 and was also suffering from dengue He had been bedridden for some weeks at his residence here and was shifted to a private hospital a few days ago His lung infection reached 80 per cent and he never recovered from it a family member said Raikar started his career with the Indian Express group and later joined Lokmat as the editor of its Aurangabad edition He was later made a group editor Condoling Raikars death Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said In him we have lost an editor who contributed to new values in the field of journalism He encouraged young journalists to explore and bring in new content and issues Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari said He was a moderate well-studied journalist and an editor As an editor he always focused on enlightening the readers His contribution in the making of many journalists who are currently in the profession is noteworthy We have lost a cordial journalist who was deeply attached to the society and its issues PTI ND ARU ARU

Mumbai Dec 23 PTI Election for the Speaker of the Maharashtra Assembly will be held on December 28 the last day of the ongoing winter session the state cabinet decided on ThursdayThe decision was taken in a cabinet meeting here said an official from the Chief Ministers OfficeThe seat fell vacant in February this year after Nana Patole stepped down and took over as the state Congress chiefThe Congress which is part of the ruling coalition along with the Shiv Sena and NCP will nominate another MLA for the election of new SpeakerThe new Speaker will effectively start functioning from the Budget session PTI ND KRK KRK KRK

Mumbai Nov 30 PTI Mumbai on Tuesday reported 187 cases of COVID-19 taking its tally to 762881 while the death toll stood at 16336 after two patients both women above the age of 60 and with comorbidities died during the day a civic official said The discharge of 192 people increased the recovery count to 741961 which is 97 per cent of the tally leaving the countrys financial capital with an active caseload of 2052 he said Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation data showed 29223 samples were examined in the past 24 hours which took the overall number of tests in the city to 12425262 It also revealed the case doubling time was 2782 days and that the city had 18 sealed buildings PTI ND BNM NSK NSK