Why action may not be taken against SEC for Covid violations: High court
PRAYAGRAJ : The Allahabad high court on Tuesday took note of reports related to deaths of government employees on panchayat election duty and directed the State Election Commission (SEC) to explain by the next hearing as to why it failed in checking non- compliance with Covid-19 guidelines during various phases of the panchayat elections in the state.
The court also asked the SEC to explain why action may not be taken against it and 27 of its officials for the same, including prosecuting those responsible for such violations.
Fixing May 3 as the next date of hearing in the case, the court directed the state government to place before it by then the details of beds for Covid-19 patients, medicines and oxygen supplied in various hospitals of Prayagraj, Lucknow, Varanasi, Agra, Kanpur Nagar, Meerut, Ghaziabad, Gautam Buddha Nagar, Gorakhpur and Jhansi.
The high court also directed the state government to ensure health bulletin, twice a day, in major government hospitals of Lucknow, Prayagraj, Varanasi, Agra, Kanpur Nagar, Gorakhpur and Jhansi, giving health updates of the patients.
The hospitals were asked to use large screens to give details of patients and their oxygen saturation levels.
Further, the state government was directed to declare on the district portals of these cities the number of beds that were occupied and vacant in Covid-19 wards and ICUs of all government and private hospitals.
The bench comprising Justice Siddhartha Varma and Justice Ajit Kumar passed the order on a suo motu public interest litigation (PIL) on the spread of Covid-19 in the state and the condition of quarantine centres.
The court said that mere anti
arrangements should be made for Agra, Mathura and the Aligarh regions.
Laying stress on speeding up work towards installation of oxygen plants in all medical colleges, he said: “Each medical college must have a liquid oxygen plant and an air separator. All hospitals in the state with a bed strength of over 100 must have their own oxygen plant. Install small oxygen generation plants at CHCs (community health centres).”
He said there were a total of 32 oxygen plants in various parts of the state and orders had been placed for installation of oxygen plants in 39 more hospitals.
“The state government is sending a proposal today to the central government for the oxygen plants that have to be set up under PM-CARES fund,” he said.
The chief minister also said, “oxygen supply in the state was rising steadily and daily”.
“The number of tankers has increased. A total of 64 tankers have been deployed for oxygen supply. Apart from this, 20 tankers are supplying oxygen directly to the hospitals. The state is also getting eight more new oxygen tankers from the central government. Besides, oxygen supply has been augmented from Jamshedpur (Jharkhand).”
He said GPS (global position system) trackers should be installed on all tankers so that they could be monitored live online.
He also called for speeding up oxygen audit work.