Uttam slams TRS govt for Covid crisis in state

TPCC president N. Uttam Kumar Reddy on Saturday criticised that the incompetent rule of the TRS government had created panic among the people about the Covid-19 pandemic and led to the health care crisis in the state.

Addressing the media, he said Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao was focusing on hospitals and Covid-19 patients one year and three months after the onset of pandemic in the country. He said that there was a big mismatch between the number of positive cases and deaths being announced by the government and what was happening on the ground.

Uttam Kumar Reddy said that Covid-19 treatment should be provided free in private hospitals to all the 80 lakh BPL families and they should also be provided with free ambulance services. He said no steps have been taken to provide free treatment in private hospitals even though they have submitted a memorandum to the Governor.

The TPCC chief said that the state government had been covering up its inefficiency and was even avoiding implementation of High Court orders. He said that soon they would move the court on the inefficiency of the state government.

He alleged that there was no control on the private hospitals in the state. Some were charging `50,000 for oxygen beds and `1.5 lakh for ventilator beds. Government orders on regulating the charges have gone for toss.

He wanted to know why the Telangana state government was going back on providing free treatment to Covid-19 patients in private hospitals while Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra states were able to do.

He said that the second wave of Covid-19 would have been controlled if the government had taken up extensive RT-PCR testing which would have costed just `9 crore to the exchequer during the first wave of the pandemic.