Maharashtra government hit out at the Centre on Thursday, saying that despite making several appeals for help in its battle against Covid-19, not much has been done by the Centre yet.
Talking about the gap in demand and supply, state minister Jayant Patil said that the state is doing as much it can with limited resources available at its disposal.
Another minister from the state, Anil Parab, also accused the Centre of having barely given state its share in the devolution of taxes or in fighting Covid-19.
"Maharashtra gives 35 per cent of the national share. Is it unfair to expect a six per cent share from the Centre?" he said.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led state government also said that from the 4,211 ventilators and 17 lakh sets of PPEs that it sought from the Centre, the state has not received a single one yet. The demand for sufficient N95 masks have also not been met. Of the 49 lakh masks demanded the state, it only received one-fourth of the demand, i.e. 13 lakh masks.
Front-line medical staffers from the state also demanded 2.33 crore triple-layered masks from the Centre, of which only 99 were provided, claimed the state government. It further said that the Centre supplied only 3.2 lakh tablets of critical Azithromycin drug, which just met one tenth of the demand made by the state, i.e. 30 lakh tablets.
In its demand for 25.24 lakh gloves and 8 lakh gowns for health workers, only 28,000 gloves and 7 lakh gowns were received by the state.
However, the state claimed that it only received sufficient amount of Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) tablets where the supply from the Centre exceeded the demand. The state had demanded 6 lakh HCQ tablets, whereas the Centre provided them with 47 lakh tablets.
State minister and Congress leader Balasaheb Thorat said that the state did not want to politicise the issue as the Centre and the state will have to fight Covid-19 together.
"But, if we are being told that the Centre has given us much more than what we were supposed to get, we clearly do not agree," he said.
Comments
0 comment