The leaders of the Congress today lambasted the Telangana government yet again for its alleged failure to protect the people of the state from the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, and for failing, also, to take strong measures to contain the spread of the disease.
CLP leader Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka alleged that after "failing" to prevent Covid-19 from spreading during the ongoing second wave, the TRS government had also failed to stop the private hospitals of the state from looting Covid-19 patients.
Speaking to the media at a virtual media event, he termed the Covid-19
task force formed by the state government as a "bogus" one, and asked its members, including IT Minister K T Rama Rao, why the details of its meetings were not being made public.
Vikramarka also targeted Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, and accused him of not doing enough to stop the spread of the pandemic in the state. He claimed that the CS's "casual attitude" towards the health emergency was evidenced by the fact that the latter was seen eating biscuits at a crucial meeting on the issue.
Saying that the KCR regime had left the lives of the people in the hands of God, he stated that the vaccination drive in Telangana had been entirely stalled, and criticised the government for failing to immunise the public in a more efficient fashion.
"People cannot get vaccinated. Patients are being charged
astronomical prices for Covid-19 treatment. On top of all this, the state government has not even been able to check the black-marketing of Remdesivir injections. Many are being forced to incur huge costs to procure the lifesaving injection from the black market. And through all this, the TRS government appears to be in a comatose state. If this is the case, I would urge the government to take the advice of the parties of the Opposition seriously. This will help it contain the pandemic more effectively," the leader asserted.
Former minister Mohammad Ali Shabbir too accused Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao of not being able to "shield" the people of the state from the devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"Whenever the state's high court pulls up the state government for its failures in dealing with the Covid-19 situation, the CM holds a review meeting and issues a long statement based on fake claims and false promises. On Monday, the High Court
rapped the government for not taking adequate measures to prevent the spread of the deadly coronavirus. It also exposed that there were huge disparities between the claims being made by state officials and the ground reality with reference to the pandemic. However, just to dilute the impact of the court's remarks, KCR issued a long statement the same evening making more fake promises," the leader said in a media statement.
Saying that the entire country, including Telangana, had been facing the second wave of Covid-19 for over a month, he claimed that the cause for the current situation was the lack of preparedness of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Centre and CM KCR in Telangana.
"The health infrastructure was not improved, either at a national level or in our state. No arrangements were made to meet the demand for medical oxygen, hospital beds, medicines, manpower, and other requirements that could help minimise the impact of Covid-19. Even today both the Modi regime and the KCR government are depending on ad-hoc arrangements. They are apparently hoping that the second wave of Covid will simply fade away on its own," Shabbir Ali fumed.
"CM KCR had promised to set up 48 oxygen generation plants in government hospitals to produce 324 MT of oxygen to prevent a shortage in the future. What has prevented him from making good on this promise? Instead of making generic statements, the CM should provide specific data regarding the funds required for those oxygen plants and the deadline by which they will be set up," he added.
The Congress leader then advised the CM to avoid taking "superficial measures" to deal with the pandemic, and said, "In his last review meeting, KCR announced that 50,000 medical professionals, including doctors, would be recruited to strengthen the state's treatment facilities. A
notification was also issued the next day by the health department. However, it was full of errors with no clarity on the exact pay package, other incentives, place of recruitment and also the duration of the contract jobs. Why would any doctor join government services for a period of two or three months at nominal pay, when they could get a good package at any private hospital? The KCR government clearly needs to put in a little more effort to truly attract talented medical professionals to government jobs - critical at this juncture to strengthen the state's health sector to fight the COvid-19 outbreak."
He also called out the government for not yet completing its promise to set up new medical colleges in Sangareddy, Jagtial, Kothagudem, Wanaparthy, Mancherial and Mahabubabad.