Only governments to be blamed

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Only governments to be blamed

According to a financial expert, by July, Covid-19 may have taken a toll of more than ten lakh people in India, if the present trend continues of daily death count of more than four thousand patients. This shows how our country is trapped in the Corona pandemic and how miserably our governments have failed to forecast and take proper measures to control it. Both centre and states have to be blamed for this collective failure. Modi government did not smell the actual amount of danger the second wave brought along with it. State governments like Maharashtra, Punjab and Delhi also caught unaware of preparedness for the pandemic severity in second wave. This has caused loss of thousands of innocent lives. We have got the rulers which have no vision as well as potential to gauge the looming problem.  It has been an extraordinary time for many state governments who have all been taken to the cleaners by high courts for doing next to nothing to prepare for the devastating second wave now washing through the country. Consider the tone of some of these observations. At a time when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was peddling his 'no shortage' theory on oxygen, the Allahabad high court observed that those in power must shun the attitude of 'my way or no way'. His counterparts in other states have not been spared either. The Gujarat high court said the state government seems to be 'functioning only on paper' while the Bombay high court came down heavily on the Maharashtra government's 'extremely callous behavior'. The same fate awaited the Delhi government. In a strong indictment of the state's handling of the crisis, the Delhi high court said its confidence was 'shaken' and that if the state government could not manage the situation, the court would ask the Centre to step in.  The tangible fruits of gross inactiveness of states  as well as center can be seen on roads in Delhi where many people are dying without oxygen. State after state (except Kerala, which managed to increase its daily medical oxygen stock to 219 MT in April from 99.39 MT in the same month last year) have simply done nothing to prepare and implement an emergency plan. According to a Union health ministry document, it had invited bids for new oxygen plants in October last year. Of the one hundred and sixty two that were sanctioned, only thirty three have been installed so far. Reason: State governments have simply not given the necessary land certification. For the national capital, eight such plants were approved, but the Delhi government could install just one such plant. The government counsel could not even tell the court whether it was functional or not. What the health ministry didn't say was that it was in charge of installation of the plants and took almost zero follow-up action against the truant states. Only the blame game has been started between Maharashtra and Modi government. Now, Maharashtra CMO has said in a press release that, Modi has lauded the efforts of state government in fight against pandemic. What has done by state government to praise as there is daily death count increasing and number of patients is rising rapidly. This may be a hoax or Modi may have been misguided by state government. This is just simple effort of raising the image of state government which is not fair in serious pandemic situation.  That is just one example of how both the Centre and states should take equal share of the blame. According to a report, as many as eleven empowered groups were set up in March 2020, as a specific response to COVID-19. They were supposed to act as quick response teams and ensure coordination between the Centre and states on specific tasks. The oxygen crisis shows how little they have done, and how they wasted the nearly five-month lull in the public health emergency, from mid-September to mid-February. In view of such inaction, the Centre's grandiose statement that it would set up oxygen plants in 551 districts of the country and the budget for this will be met by the PM CARES Fund lacks credibility and looks like playing to the gallery. The politicking over oxygen has been nauseating. INOX, the country's largest oxygen maker, told the Delhi high court that four tankers which were being brought to Delhi for meeting the oxygen shortage were taken under control by the central government. The company also said its supplies for Delhi have been cut down by the Centre and the majority of its production has been allocated to Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The sheer helplessness of the situation is evident from the Delhi high court's observation: 'As it stands, we all know this country is being run by God'. Unless the judges are referring to anybody in particular in the central government, it sums up the universal impression that people desperate for oxygen have been left to fend for themselves. To be fair, no one could have possibly anticipated the magnitude of the crisis. But the real problem has been supply chain management. The tankers served the purpose well until before the pandemic, but now they are scarce. Such tankers cost over Rs 50 lakh (Rs 5 million) each and companies are reluctant to buy them because once the immediate crisis is over, that investment will turn into losses. Both the center and states share  equal blame for the serious situation of pandemic as both lack vision and both are equally lazy to be prepared to combat with the crisis.