shortage included Kandri , Malegaon and Nasik . And , as if all this was not enough , there have been disastrous fires in hospitals in several States .
An analysis of the death of COVID patients due to oxygen shortage shows that such incidents have occurred in Delhi , Maharashtra , Madhya Pradesh , Gujarat , Rajasthan , Uttarakhand , Punjab , Haryana , Uttar Pradesh , Karnataka , Telangana , Andhra Pradesh , Tamil Nadu and Goa , a total of 14 States — half the number of the States in the country . And the elected Governments are run by a wide range of political parties , including the BJP , the Congress , AAP , Shiv Sena , YSR Congress , the Telangana Rashtra Samithi and the DMK . The Maharashtra Government is run by a coalition of eight parties , including the Shiv Sena , the Congress , the NCP and the SP . The DMK-led coalition in Tamil Nadu has the Congress , the CPI , the CPM and the MDMK , among others .
While everyone is indulging in the blame game , it must be noted that the Prime Minister has chosen not to blame anybody . However , some fundamentals must be understood . Under the Constitution , the State Governments are primarily responsible for hospitals and their disasters . The sharing of powers between the Centre and the States is delineated in the Seventh Schedule , which lists the items that fall within the domain of each entity .
Item six in the State List in this Schedule states : “ Public health and sanitation ; hospitals and dispensaries .” In other words , public
The sharing of powers between the Centre and the States is delineated in the Seventh Schedule , which lists the items that fall within the domain of each entity .
health and the management of hospitals and dispensaries is wholly the responsibility of the States and they cannot get away by pointing fingers at somebody else . The States also have the duty to prevent spread of infectious diseases ( Item 29 in the Concurrent List ). Therefore , no State can claim that it was helpless or powerless to deal with these issues .
Over the last month , the Prime Minister has been made the fall guy — a convenient ruse to deflect blame from all other entities . But once we overcome this crisis , we must take stock of what the following entities did or did not do in the first quarter of this year : The Chief Ministers ; State Health Ministers ; Chief Secretaries ; Health Secretaries ; the Indian Council of Medical Research and the administrators of all major Government and private hospitals , apart from the Union Government , the Union Health Ministry in particular , the Union Health Secretary and all senior officials in that Ministry . Did any of the administrators of private hospitals who are studio-hopping over the last three weeks and blaming all and sundry for the oxygen depletion , take any measures to augment the supply and storage of oxygen in their hospitals over the past year ? But , as stated earlier , this is not the time for this exercise .
It is true that the Centre should have woken up to the disaster much earlier . Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh ( RSS ) chief Mohan Bhagwat summed it up when he said after the first wave of COVID-19 : “ The Government , administration and public dropped their guard .” However , this is not the time for finger-pointing . “ We have to stay positive …. to keep ourselves COVID-negative ,” he says . Emphasising the need for positivity at this juncture , Bhagwat referred to a particular phase in World War II when England appeared to be losing the war . Yet , there was a note on Prime Minister Winston Churchill ’ s desk that read : “ There is no pessimism in this office . We are not interested in the possibilities of defeat . They don ’ t exist .” Bhagwat said India too needs to have such courage and resolve to defeat COVID-19 . He is absolutely right . While it is true that not a single family is unaffected by either the COVID illness or consequential bereavement , we have to exhibit superhuman courage , resolve and positivity in the face of personal tragedy to defeat this rampaging scourge .
( The writer is an author specialising in democracy studies . The views expressed are personal .)
www . legacyindia . in June 2021 | Legacy India 23