New Delhi: West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Friday (April 23) accused the Centre of diverting the oxygen supply meant for Bengal to the other states, which is able to create a scarcity of oxygen within the state and jeopardise remedy of COVID-19 sufferers. The Bengal CM additionally accused the Centre of being negligent and accountable for the rise in COVID circumstances within the nation. Calling the present COVID state of affairs within the nation ‘a failure of the central authorities’, Mamata mentioned the Centre not solely ignored the WHO warning, however was lackadaisical in taking steps in opposition to the rise of the illness within the nation.
“In 2020, the WHO had told the Central government to increase the storage of oxygen but it had ignored the suggestion. Now when the entire country is reeling under the crisis of oxygen shortage, it has decided to divert the oxygen supply scheduled for the state to Uttar Pradesh. SAIL, which used to supply oxygen to us, has been asked to send the oxygen to Uttar Pradesh. This will increase the crisis of oxygen in our state,” Mamata mentioned at a press convention on Friday.
“Presently, there is a crisis of oxygen and medicines. We have stopped supplying oxygen for industrial purposes and decided to use it for medical purposes only. We have arranged for a stock of 5,000 cylinders and there is an additional stock of 15,000 cylinders. This will create a storage of 20,000 cylinders which will meet our requirements for the next few days,” CM Mamata added.
Later, the state authorities mentioned in a be aware, “The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, authorities of India, had on April 21 allotted 200 MT of oxygen from completely different vegetation positioned in West Bengal to outdoors the state. As per the present affected person load and the rising pattern of the an infection, it’s anticipated that the consumption degree in West Bengal will radically rise to roughly 450 MT per day within the subsequent couple of weeks.
“Hence, the present allocation of liquid oxygen to outside West Bengal will jeopardise the medical treatment of Covid patients in the state. The government of West Bengal has accordingly requested the government of India on April 22 to consider the need of the state and not divert the medical oxygen available in West bengal to elsewhere.”
“The central government had put in all their efforts to conquer Bengal. Small and big BJP leaders have been in this state for months and we don’t know whether they have COVID. They are risking the lives of the people of this state,” she acknowledged.
Mamata additionally claimed that she was not invited to the assembly held by the Prime Minister on Friday with the CMs of the excessive burden states to talk about the COVID state of affairs. “They had invited the Chief Ministers of 10 states where Covid cases are high. But I was not invited. Had I been invited, I would have participated in the meeting,” she mentioned.
Taking a dig on the Election Commission for taking selections in favour of the BJP in poll-bound Bengal, Banerjee mentioned, “I cannot do any big rallies and meetings because of the EC directive which came after 10 pm on Thursday. “The Prime Minister was supposed to do a rally in Kolkata and after he cancelled it, the EC issued the directive. We have been constantly telling the ballot panel to combine the final three phases of elections, however it is not going to do it. It is engaged on BJP’s behalf.”
