Hard to Believe: HC Surprised Over Madhya Pradesh Govt's Reply that Oxygen Shortage Caused No Deaths

Expressing surprise over the Madhya Pradesh government’s reply that none died of oxygen shortage during the Covid-19’s second wave, the Jabalpur principal bench of MP high court observed that ‘it’s something which is hard to believe.

The HC observed this while hearing a set of petitions filed with it seeking compensation for deaths allegedly caused by the dearth of oxygen supply during the second wave.

The HC itself had listed 77 deaths due to oxygen shortage district wise early this year but the State government later presented an affidavit with the court affirming that none died due to shortage of oxygen. The HC bench expressed surprise when the matter of compensation over oxygen shortage deaths came up on Tuesday.

The division bench of the HC headed by the Chief Justice has asked the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government to furnish a reply on the matter. The court has sought to know when the State government has denied deaths due to oxygen shortage so what will it do on the compensation demands.

The HC has asked the government on this issue so that it could decide on the petitions.

Offering three weeks to the state government for furnishing the reply, the HC has posted the matter for hearing on September 6.

The MP government also presented an Action Taken Report, 11th one, with the HC claiming 18 plus population will be inoculated by December end this year. The government said it’s installing 188 oxygen plants in the State and 61 of which are already been made operational. Saying that CT scan machines were with 14 district hospitals and tenders have been floated for the remaining ones. A total of 13 medical colleges have been allocated 1,280 ventilators while 16,977 hospital beds will be made available by September 2021, the report said.

With inputs from Pratik Mohan Awasthi.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here.