Hyderabad: The Opposition parties have acted responsibly in this COVID19 crisis. About ten days ago, leaders of various Opposition parties had pleaded with the Center to ensure uninterrupted provision of oxygen to all the medical centers and free universal vaccination in the entire country. Condemning the lack of proper response to the joint request, four chief ministers and 12 Opposition parties have jointly written to the Prime Minister yet again, seeking immediate action.
Apart from calling for immediate release of the budgetary allocation of Rs 35,000 crore for free vaccination to all the countrymen, the Opposition parties have also called upon the government to focus on containing the virus. A truly deep and gloomy situation in the background has prompted the Opposition to make the joint appeal to the Center.
Scarcity of vaccine faced by the country, renowned as a major vaccine manufacturer, is clearly a result of lack of planning. Since the past several decades the country has been implementing national free vaccination programme. The Supreme Court has recently posed a candid question to the Center as to why the free vaccination mechanism of the country was not utilized for the delivery of covid vaccine?
The court has also questioned as to the fate of the poorer sections of the country in the backdrop of the large scale economic devastation caused by the pandemic. In this background, the Opposition call for the protection of the right to life deserves 100 percent support.
In the backdrop of the estimates that vaccine scarcity will continue to haunt the country till July on the one hand and the scarcity of oxygen and other life protection drugs on the other, the Center should act briskly to ameliorate the situation with the support from States.
Read: Delhi's positivity rate dips to 11 pc; 6,500 new COVID-19 cases reported
For the first time after about 14 months, England has registered zero covid deaths a few days ago. The number of new cases too has fallen considerably in that country.
In India there are more than one lakh active covid cases spread across 13 States. More than 37 lakh such cases are reported from all over the country. With a cumulative 2.37 crore covid positive cases and 2.6 lakh mortalities, India’s daily covid mortality rate is not dropping below 4,000.
In this frightening situation, the Indian Council of Medical Research has suggested an 8 week lockdown in 530 districts that have reported more than 10 percent positive cases.
If lockdown is imposed for two more months, what will happen to the lives of the poor wage laborers and workers, who suffered economic devastation due to the last year’s lockdown?
Renowned Indian economist Jean Dreze has warned that India is at the threshold of a major livelihoods crisis. While maintaining that the hard earned savings of numerous people have evaporated due to the pandemic, Jean Dreze has made certain suggestions as a solution to this situation.
Apart from calling for the widening of the relief measures announced by the government earlier, he has also suggested cash transfer to rescue the poor and the needy. It may be noted that the Biden government in the United States of America announced a stimulus package amounting to Rs 138 lakh crore for his country’s citizens under which direct financial benefits will be provided to the people along with providing unemployment allowance and support to petty businessmen.
Meanwhile the Supreme Court of India has directed the Center and the governments of Delhi, Haryana and UP to provide ration to the stranded migrant laborers. Governments should take upon themselves the responsibility of preventing starvation deaths by providing free ration to poor and low income groups.
The food and grain stocks of the country should be put to the best use to alleviate the hunger of crores of poor people.
Read: India records over 3.26L new COVID-19 cases, 3890 deaths in 24 hrs
