'60,000 Cr in PM Fund, 3,200 Cr spent, where is the rest?' Siddaramaiah slams Karnataka CM

Former Chief Minister of Karnataka and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah has targeted the Centre and Karnataka state government over a range of issues related to COVID-19 crisis management in the state. He alleged the Yediyurappa led state government of being involved in corrupt practices in the procurement of medical supplies for Covid-19 adding that Rs 3,228 crore spent by the government on medical supplies could have procured in around Rs 1,400 Crore at prevailing market prices. He alleged that medical supplies were procured by the state government at double the actual market cost and close to Rs 2,200 Crore has been misappropriated by various departments.

Stepping up his attack on the Centre, he also questioned the government about the amount spent from the PM CARES Fund, and how much of it was spent on Karnataka.

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In a series of tweets, he lambasted the state government and the Centre over the COVID-19 response of the state and the country. As the state government was facing the heat over the funeral or burial of the dead bodies when a video of the health care workers purportedly from Bellary had gone viral showing the way the dead bodies were being dumped by them in a pit, Siddaramaiah said while speaking over the issue, "Government has failed to arrange for a decent funeral of dead Covid-19 patients. It is heart-wrenching to see the way the bodies are treated during burials. It is unfortunate that govt has not finalised the cremation protocol even after so many days."

Also, on the availability of hospital beds for COVID-19 patients, he tweeted, According to the government data, there are 4,663 beds out of which 2,694 beds are occupied. There are only 1,969 beds available. Why did the government not anticipate the need for increased beds in spite of the warning by experts? By now, at least 30,000 beds should have been arranged."

On the national front, he cited the COVID-19 testing numbers of other countries as against India's COVID-19 testing figures concluding that India "is nowhere close" to other advanced countries in terms of testing.

Siddaramaiah's accusation comes even as India has ramped up its testing capacity. As per the government data on mygov.in, 2,41,576 samples were tested alone on July 3. India's COVID-19 recovery rate has surpassed 60 percent. It is true that India's total number of COVID-19 tests is less as compared to that of the US which has done maximum COVID-19 testing than any other country in the world. As per America's Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the US has conducted over 3.62 Crore tests as on July 3 as against India's total tests figure which is close to 93 Lakhs. However, the testing capacity of India has ramped up with close to 2.5 lakh testings per day in the country.

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