Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said that the country needs to work together to fight COVID-19. He called for to combine power of community groups, political parties and NGOs in the battle against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The PM interacted with governors and lieutenant governors of all states and union territories through video conference and urged them to actively engage in ensuring that social institutions collaborate seamlessly with state governments.

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Modi said the feeling of “janbhagidari” (people’s participation) that was seen in curbing the virus last year needed to encouraged now as well and added the role of governors becomes all the more critical to achieving this.

Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu, Home Minister Amit Shah and Health Minister Harsh Vardhan also participated in the virtual interaction. India is witnessing an astronomical rise in the COVID infections with over 1.5 lakh coronavirus cases being reported everyday.

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He said the government is committed to ensuring adequate availability of vaccines and highlighted that India has become the fastest nation to reach the landmark of 10 crore vaccinations.

Noting the positive impact of “tika utsav” (vaccination festival) in the last four days, he said that in this period, the vaccination drive was expanded and new vaccination centres also came up.