Congress Slams KCR For Not Including Covid-19 In Aarogyasri

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) Treasurer Gudur Narayana Reddy strongly condemned Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao for not including the treatment for Covid-19 in the Aarogyasri Scheme.

Reddy said that the Chief Minister had given an assurance on the floor of the Telangana Legislative Assembly on September 9 that he would consider including Covid-19 treatment under Aarogyasri. Reddy however claimed that the CM had done nothing in this regard in the last 15 days.

"The number of Covid-19 cases in Telangana has touched the 1.8 lakh mark today, and so far as many as 1,070 people lost their lives. When will KCR react? Is he waiting for the Covid cases number to touch the one million mark or is he waiting for the death toll to cross one lakh?" Reddy asked.

The Congress leader said that the pandemic had apparently reached Stage 3 in Telangana. Even after six months, there were no signs of any slowdown in the Covid-19 cases even despite the manipulation of the real figures by the state government. And many middle-class and poor people were not even coming forward to test themselves for fear of how they would manage treatment if found positive - the fear of a lack of facilities in public hospitals and exorbitant bills in private hospitals were keeping away a majority of the people from getting themselves tested despite having mild symptoms.

"This behaviour will change if the state government offers free treatment for Covid-19 by including it under Aarogyasri," Reddy said.

Reddy pointed out that as many as 1,79,246 cases of Covid-19 were registered in Telangana as on September 23. Of these, as per official figures, as many as 1,48,139 patients had recovered. "On an average, even if each patient had spent Rs 1 lakh for his/her treatment on average, then the common people have spent at least Rs 1,500 crore from their purses," he said, adding that the real amount would be much higher as private hospitals had charged Rs 5-10 lakh for treatment of each patient.

The Congress leader said that thousands of affected families had lost all their savings, sold properties and jewellery, and ended up with huge debts to arrange money for Covid-19 treatment. "The state government could have saved these families from financial trouble if it had included Covid-19 treatment under Aarogyasri in the beginning itself," he said, and added that thousands of other families would face a similar fate if KCR further delayed the inclusion of Covid-19 treatment under Aarogyasri.

Reddy demanded that the CM immediately issue orders to include Covid-19 treatment under Aarogyasri. Else the Congress would launch a massive agitation to siege Pragathi Bhavan, he warned the CM.