Shabbir Addresses Satyagraha Deeksha, Flays KCR

The Congress today demanded that the Telangana Government provide free treatment to the Covid-19 and Black Fungus patients and ensure free vaccination for all in a time-bound manner.

Addressing the Satyagraha Deeksha at the Gandhi Bhavan, part of the Congress' nationwide protests demanding universal free vaccination against Covid-19, former minister Mohammad Ali Shabbir strongly condemned the BJP government at the Centre and TRS government in Telangana over the slow pace of Covid-19 vaccination.

In his speech, he pointed out that as against the requirement of about 3.4 crore vaccine doses, as of June 6, 2021, only 66,95,704 doses had been administered, which included 13.03 lakh second doses.

"Telangana needs over 2.73 crore doses to vaccinate the total demographic of those above 18. The average vaccination so far has been 47,152 doses per day. If the vaccination drive continues at this same pace, it will take nearly 580 days, or about 19 months, to vaccinate the entire adult population of the state. Consequently, a majority of the population will remain exposed to the coronavirus for the next one-and-a-half years," the leader said.

"The Telangana government has failed to pressurise the Centre in allocating adequate stocks of vaccine to the state. The tall claims made by Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao over the global tenders floated for the procurement of vaccines proved hollow as his government could not secure a single additional dose. The CM has been making false statements to mislead the people so as to buy more time. This has been the case since the outbreak of the pandemic last year. When the first case was reported in Telangana in March 2020, he downplayed the seriousness of the matter by making a statement at the Assembly that the disease could be cured with a paracetamol tablet. He even claimed that the virus would die in a temperature of 22 degrees Celsius. People trusted him and remained careless which led to the spread of the disease in all parts of Telangana. KCR maintained a careless attitude till the end of the first wave and did not bother to upgrade the health infrastructure of the state. Consequently, over 5.91 lakh people got infected and thousands lost their lives. The CM is primarily responsible for most of these deaths and he must be booked for homicide," he fumed.

Shabbir Ali also flayed the CM for making false promises through the pandemic, and alleged, "On March 14, 2020, KCR announced at the Assembly that his government would spend Rs 1,000 crore to control Covid-19. This promise was not fulfilled. Later, the TRS regime collected huge donations and it is yet to give the details of the total collection and the utilisation of the same. On September 9, 2020, he announced that the treatment of the disease would be included in the Aarogyasri scheme. But even this has not been done. People have sold their homes, their gold and spent all their savings on treatment due to the organised loot being done by private hospitals. The CM neither honoured his promise of providing free treatment nor did he take any measures to prevent this loot. His criminal negligence has ruined the lives of lakhs of families across Telangana."

"The TRS in its election manifesto for 2014 elections had promised to establish 24 super speciality hospitals in 24 district headquarters, 30 bedded hospitals with four doctors in each mandal and a 100-bedded hospital for each Assembly constituency. After coming to power, the TRS reduced the expenditure on public health from 4.1% of the total budget in 2014-15 to a mere 3.5% in 2019-20. While the old promises are unfulfilled, KCR woke up from his Kumbhakaran slumber after 15 months, and is misleading the people again by promising new hospitals and the improvement of the health sector. He is now trying to highlight the fact that 19 diagnostics centres are being launched. He is promoting the same as his super- achievement," the former minister charged.

Talking abut the Black Fungus cases, he said that the Telangana government was doing nothing concrete to deal with the rising cases of mucormycosis although it had been "declared as a pandemic".

Shabbir Ali then demanded that the government ensure free treatment for Covid-19 and Black Fungus patients and a universal free vaccination program. He also demanded that the families of those who had succumbed to Covid-19 be compensated.