DW BUREAU / Chandigarh Prioritizing peoples' health, Haryana Chief Minister, Manohar Lal while stepping up the vaccination drive has announced free Booster Dose for adult beneficiaries falling within the age group of 18 years to 59 years. Thus, the eligible beneficiaries can get the booster dose worth Rs 250 free of cost from any government hospital or dispensary. There are about 1.2 crore such beneficiaries falling within the said age group in the State of Haryana and the total cost of about Rs 300 crore will be borne by the State from the COVID Relief Fund. In view of the surge in COVID cases, Sh. Manohar Lal has appealed to the people to wear masks and ensure strict adherence of COVID appropriate behaviour like washing hands frequently etc. He said that adhering COVID guidelines is the biggest tool in the fight against Corona and vaccination is the second weapon. The Chief Minister said that it would be ensured that the eligible beneficiaries in the age group of 18 years to 59 years would be given free booster doses to protect each and every person of the State from the highly contagious COVID. It is noteworthy that so far more than 2.33 crore first doses of the COVID vaccine and 1.88 crore people have been administered both the doses of the vaccine in the State. Also, about 3,71700 booster doses have been administered till now. Hry has adopted proactive strategy: Chief secretary Chandigarh Haryana is strictly following the Union Health Ministry's guidelines on Covid-appropriate behaviour and has adopted a proactive strategy to combat the recent surge in cases seen in a couple of NCR districts, a senior state official said on Monday. Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal also said a massive vaccination drive has already been run across the state to arrest the spread of the virus. He was speaking during a meeting chaired by Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla to review the COVID-19 situation and preparedness in Delhi and in the National Capital Region, a Haryana government statement said. "Amid the recent surge in the number of infection cases, Haryana is doing several management preparations coupled with aggressive surveillance, stringent containment, swift contact tracing, focused clinical management along with proactive Information, Education and Communication (IEC) activities," Kaushal said. In the meeting held through video conference, Kaushal said the state government is increasing testing capacity, especially in containment zones, apart from making aggressive efforts to reduce the case positivity rate. He further informed that strategies are being made for declaring micro containment zones and increasing daily testing capacity in some districts, including Gurugram, which have seen a significant jump in positivity rate. Nine micro containment zones have already been declared in Gurugram to break the virus chain, he said. Gurugram and Faridabad, the state's NCR districts bordering the national capital, have seen a surge in Covid cases during the past few weeks. / PTI / (editor@dailyworld.in)