The findings of a Central team headed by Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal, which visited Telangana from June 26 to 28 in the backdrop of COVID-19 pandemic, were not communicated to the State government so far.
This was mentioned by the State government in a report filed before Telangana High Court hearing a batch of PIL pleas on COVID issue. A bench of Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan and Justice B. Vijaysen Reddy, hearing the pleas, expressed discontentment over response of the officials to court directions on the matter on Monday.
The report filed in the HC said the Central team visited some containment zones and went to Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences (TIMS) in Gachibowli. It had a meeting with the Chief Secretary and other top officials. “The Central team suggested to ramp up testing” but did not convey its findings to the State government, the report said.
While there are 349 active containment zones in non-GHMC area in the State, it is 61 in GHMC area. Among the districts, Rangareddy has highest number of containment zones of 102 followed by Medchal Malkajgiri-94, Mahbubnagar-68 and Rajanna Siricilla-33.
The State government was taking all measures to protect citizens from the pandemic. However, Press Information Bureau (PIB) issued a report which was tarnishing the efforts made in controlling and managing COVID-19 by Telangana government, the report presented in the court said. The PIB report was “absolutely baseless”, it said.
The report also stated that the HC had appreciated the efforts of State government relating to testing, hospital preparedness and case management. Interestingly, the bench headed by the CJ on Monday took a serious objection to the failure of Public Health Director G. Srinivasa Rao and Director of Medical Education Dr. Ramesh Reddy to follow its earlier directions on COVID-19 related matters.
According to the report, total beds available in government hospitals were 17,081 for COVID patients. Out of them, 11,928 are isolation beds, 3,537 oxygen beds, 1,616 ICU beds. By the time of filing the report in the court, the occupancy of beds in government hospitals was 10.8% while 89.2% of beds were vacant.
