Leaders of the Grand Alliance (GA) on Sunday slammed the state government for alleged mismanagement of the Covid-19 pandemic, which complicated miseries of people owing to various crises, and urged the chief minister Nitish Kumar to have the say of legislators in using the local area development (LAD) fund to refurbish health infrastructure in their areas.
Last month, the state government had allocated тВ╣2 crore out of the total тВ╣3 crore of the LAD fund of each legislator to the health department for management of the pandemic, which infected nearly 6.50 lakh people in its second wave. Legislators of the opposition parties were feeling handicapped to help the people during the pandemic as they were unable to provide monetary help to the distressed lots.
The GA, which held a virtual meeting under the leadership of RJD leader Tejashwi Prasad Yadav on Sunday, issued a 15-point charter of demands, which also included the issuance of a status report on purchases of ambulances purchased from LAD fund MPs/MLAs in the last 15 years. They alleged that the government was indulging in tampering with data on pandemic instead of focussing its attention on ensuring proper care to the people under treatment.
This is for the first time when leaders of the opposition parties, including those of the Congress and left parties, held a joint meeting to discuss the chaos and various crises the people are grappling with to access suitable medical facilities in the state.
RJD senior Alok Mehta, who conducted the meeting, said that the GA wrote a letter to the CM asking him to provide a monthly allowance of тВ╣750 to those left jobless due to the pandemic and ration to those who donтАЩt pay income tax.
Yadav questioned the rationale behind allocating a major chunk of LAD fund to the health department without seeking the legislatorsтАЩ consent and claimed that people of Bihar were suffering the most owing to the state governmentтАЩs inefficiency and mishandling of the pandemic by a select group of bureaucrats.
The opposition leaders alleged that the government had taken тВ╣50 lakh from each legislatorsтАЩ quota in the name of improving health infrastructure last year. But we were completely unaware of what happened with the fund. They also demanded payment of тВ╣4lakh as exgratia to those who died waiting for the Covid test.
The leaders also asked for increasing the number of RT-PCR test instead of less reliable tests like rapid antigen and TrueNat modes. They also sought to know the progress in setting up the expert committee, which they had suggested during a meeting with the governor. Arrangement of sufficient quantity of vaccine, the appointment of doctors and medical staff on an urgent basis and issuance of a white paper on the equipment procured under the PM Cares fund were among other demands.
Meanwhile, Congress legislature party (CLP) leader Ajit Sharma also wrote a letter to the CM, asking him to arrange the purchase of one fully equipped ambulance in each district from the тВ╣2 crore discretionary quota fund, which the state government has already taken, to take care of covid-infected people of their respective areas.
The Congress party has also proposed to set up a district-level task force of its office bearers to monitor the quality of medical facilities being offered to the covid-infected people in the government and private hospitals and pressurise the district administration and health officials to discharge their duties properly.
Earlier on Saturday, Indian Youth Congress (IYC) chief Srinivas BV reviewed the functioning of the state Youth Congress volunteers, who are part of the SOSIYC, for extending help to the people suffering from the pandemic and their families by way of facilitating the availability of suitable beds in hospitals, arranging oxygen and necessary medicines and providing food to those under home isolation
.
