New Delhi: It takes a man of steel to handle an emergency and Arvind Kejriwal is a man of rubber it seems. His government has fallen flat and he has doomed the Delhiites to face the catastrophic epidemic outbreak all by themselves with hospitals shutting doors to take in the infected patients into the hospital on the plea of shortfall of beds, though sources say, about 3000 beds are unoccupied in the government run hospitals.
The mismanagement of the hospital staff and lack of equipment will be the turning point of disgust for the patients when the virus infected head-count touches over 50,000 in the Capital by the end of this month. If the existing doubling in a fortnight goes unchecked, Delhi would be needing at least 40,000 beds by July end and at least 10,000 ventilators.
Many hospitals are reportedly not conducting the Covid test to contain the rising figures of the infected patients. A month ago, the south Delhi Mayor had gone on record to say that there was an increase in the infections but was unable to gauge why the Delhi government was concealing the figures and putting out a lower one instead.
Arvind Kejriwal is riding high on blunders.
First was the imposition of corona tax on liquor which resulted in smuggling from across the Delhi borders and now he has ordered for its withdrawal from Wednesday onwards.
The second was his decision to grant permission to open the malls, restaurants from 8th June knowing well the profile of Delhiites that they would throng the places with a vengeance.
Third was his free food distribution to poor and needy which invariably was in short supply and people complained of its quality.
The fourth blunder was his diktat that the cabs, autos and e-rickshaws would ply with a limit to the passengers. This seems to have not gone well with people. “How do you expect a family of six to hire three cabs. He should have judged the ground reality,” said Ritu Chandok, a housewife in South Delhi.
The fifth blunder was his self-publicity. The disinfectant tunnel at the entry of wholesale vegetable market at Azadpur, carried his pictures. That is another matter that the disinfectant spray did not work a day after it was installed. All the mobile disinfectant sprayers carried his picture in the front. It was widely publicized on all TV news channels. Vinod Manuja of Rajinder Nagar said, “He was busy in promoting himself and misleading media into believing that they were fully prepared for handling the patients of Covid at many hospitals in the capital.”
The sixth blunder was to disallow any outsider from Delhi to be treated for Covid. “This is totally disgusting as there are hundreds of people working here with their domicile other than Delhi. What do they do,” lamented Rajesh Jha, a journalist.
Not left behind, Deputy Chief Minister and Education Minister Manish Sisodia ordered that no school would charge other than tuition fee during the lockdown period and the school staff including the contractual ones should be paid their full salary. Earlier, he had said that only a month’s tuition fee should be charged during the lockdown period.
But before the order came, most of the private schools had started online classes justifying the fee demand that the studies was continuing. The ban on hiking the fee during the lockdown was an eye wash as no guidelines debarring the school to not hike after the lockdown is lifted.
The Delhi Parents Association had submitted a memorandum to Kejriwal that the schools should waive off the fee during the lockdown period as salary-cut for employees and no-income for the business class was self-explanatory.
Kejriwal who claimed to be the messiah of Delhi electorate, in fact, crucified Delhiites on the altar of blunders and lies and has left them fending for their ownselves admist the rising Covid cases.
The middle class was looking for relief in power and water bills during the lockdown period but Arvind Kejriwal did not take up this issue.
At least two of the government run hospitals, Lok Narain Jai Prakash and Ram Manohar Lohia, have added a make-shift air conditioned mortuary as the deads are more than the existing capacity of 90 in the mortuary. The mobile mortuary can accommodate almost 100 bodies. This itself speaks of the increased death rate in Delhi. The body takes about three to four days for its disposal at the Punjabi Bagh electric crematorium which is at present functional.
At a few government hospitals, patients self-suspecting of being infected were not allowed to enter the government hospital including one in the resettlement colony of Jehangirpuri.
