New Delhi: With acute shortage of requisite medicines, oxygen, ICU beds and now Covid prevention vaccines wreaking a havoc across the country amidst the second phase of deadly corona pandemic, the Opposition leaders have cried foul play on part of Centre and alleged that it’s a complete failure of system in gauging the problem. To buttress their claims, the leaders cited government datas and alleged that India sold twice as much oxygen to the world during the first 10 months of the financial year 2020-21 as compared to 2019-2020 fiscal. Similarly, the Opposition alleged that the Modi government without assuming the need of the vaccination and medicines for country men, he chose of either export or gift them to other nations hence jeopardising national need.
While in a biggest irony Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren has written to Centre to approve his request for importing Remdesivir vials from Bangladesh on a very urgent basis, Congress leaders including Priyanka Gandhi and Digvijay Singh have blamed upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi for exporting or gifting medicines, covid vaccines over the last few months by jeopardising the health of own nationals.
TMC chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee too alleged lack of complacency on part of Modi government and alleged that in February this year she had sought from Centre vaccines, Remdesivir, oxygen through a letter but the Centre was busy in exporting these health facilities.
Opposition leaders have alleged this happened despite the fact that India was one of the three worst-affected nations from the coronavirus pandemic.
Vaccines and crucial medicine Remdesivir and Fabiflu used for treating acute corona disease cases, were also exported of gifted as a goodwill gesture by the Modi government.
Taking a dig at the Modi government over poor medical infrastructure, Priyanka Gandhi on Wednesday asked why India was facing an acute oxygen shortage despite having one of the largest production capacities in the world. “India’s production capacity for oxygen is one of the largest in world. Then why’s there a shortage? You had 8-9 months (between first & second wave), your own Serosurveys indicated that a 2nd wave is imminent, you ignored it,” said Priyanka.
She further alleged citing government data that 1.1 million Remdesivir injections were exported in last six months and the country is struggling to get even one vial of the emergency injection. Jharkhand early this week wrote a letter to Cabinet Minister DV Sadanand Gowda asking for permission to import 50,000 Remdesivir vials from neighbouring Bangladesh.
“Govt exported 6 crore vaccines between January-March. During this time 3-4 crore Indians were vaccinated. A huge PR exercise was conducted with photos of vaccines arriving in countries like Mauritius, Guyana and Nepal being circulated. Why were Indians not prioritised? Vaccine shortage is due to bad planning, Remdesivir shortage due to no planning, oxygen shortage due to no strategy. It’s Govt’s failure,” Priyanka Gandhi added.
The party's general secretary remarked government’s lack of foresight has compelled India to become an importer of vaccines today.
As per Commerce Department, in the first three quarters of fiscal 2021, 9294 MT of liquid oxygen was exported to Bangladesh. As per data, in the April-January period of Financial Year 2021, exports were more than double that of the previous year. Between April 2020 and January 2021, India exported 9,301 metric tonnes of oxygen across the world generating a revenue of Rs 8.9 crore. In contrast, the country had exported only Rs 4,514 crore during financial year 2019-20, earning merely Rs 5.5 crore.
During the last fortnight when there has been a massive surge in corona cases, all forms of medical supplies have been running low leading to a lot of discomfort within the patients and people looking for facilities to battle the disease. This clearly is a case of visionless governance," Rajya Sabha MP and Shiv Sena leader Priyanka Chaturvedi told The Pioneer.
While Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said that some hospitals did not have enough oxygen supplies to sustain patients, Goa had to ban supply of oxygen cylinders outside the state with immediate effect.
Maharashtra, which now accounts for almost half the total COVID cases across the nation had requested Centre to provide more medical oxygen and medicines.
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and several other regions have reported either short of no supply of oxygen, medicines, beds though the case are surging on an hourly basis. NCP leader and Maharashtra minister Nawab Malik alleged that the central government had asked export companies not to supply Remdesivir medicine to the state.
(First published in www.dailypioneer.com)