Punjab’s former Deputy Chief Minister and Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday accused the ruling Congress government of adopting a “non-serious” approach to tackle the pandemic.
Mr. Badal urged Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to take immediate measures to establish mini-COVID centres, accelerate the vaccination process, re-employ medical staff and put a cap on treatment charges in private hospitals besides waiving power bills for six months.
“State government has shown a complete non-serious approach in dealing with the COVID situation. The need of the hour was to establish mini COVID centres with level one and two facilities in all blocks of the State. Vaccination was also necessary, and that the government should accelerate the vaccination process and ensure the entire State was vaccinated in the next three months. He said 500 teams could be formed to cover all 12,000 villages and that the government should augment its vaccine supply by going in for global tenders,” he said, addressing a press conference.
Mr. Badal alleged private hospitals were charging ₹2.5 lakh to ₹3 lakh as hospitalisation charges from COVID patients. He demanded subsidising treatment of patients by the Punjab government and taking on the responsibility of paying the hospitalisation charges.
“The government should waive electricity and water bills for a six-month period. Also, financial relief should be extended to taxi drivers, rickshaw pullers, small shop keepers and labourers whose livelihood had been severely affected due to the ongoing lockdown in the State,” he added.
