While Uttar Pradesh ministers and lawmakers are adopting government healthcare centres to help improve the healthcare infrastructure in the state amid the second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, the Congress president, Sonia Gandhi, has sent three truckloads of wood to help the poor cremate their dead in Rae Bareli, her Lok Sabha constituency.
Several UP ministers have responded to chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s appeal asking Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs to adopt government-run primary or community health centres (PHCs or CHCs). UP has nearly 3,500 PHCs and around 850 CHCs, most of them in dilapidated condition without adequate manpower. A right to information (RTI) query in 2015 also revealed that the state had very few health centres compared to its population. A health department official said the situation hasn’t improved much since.
On Monday, basic education minister Satish Dwivedi and minorities welfare minister Mohsin Raza announced adoption of health centres in Itwa in Siddharth Nagar district, from where Dwivedi is an MLA, and Safipur in Unnao, Raza’s home town.
“I will do my best to better the medical facilities and infrastructure in this CHC,” Raza said, adding he had intimated his decision to the chief minister. Dwivedi said he planned to demolish the old health centre building in Itwa and replace it with a new one.
Ved Prakash Gupta, the BJP lawmaker from Ayodhya who has just recovered from Covid, too, confirmed he was adopting one health centre while several other lawmakers said they were finalising the adoption.
{{/usCountry}}Ved Prakash Gupta, the BJP lawmaker from Ayodhya who has just recovered from Covid, too, confirmed he was adopting one health centre while several other lawmakers said they were finalising the adoption.
{{/usCountry}}“I have adopted PHC at Pura Bazaar, located where an Azamgarh-Ayodhya four lane road is coming up. We also intend to set up a trauma centre there in due course,” Gupta said.
BJP MLC and party vice president Vijay Bahadur Pathak said he had adopted a PHC in Azamgarh. “We are committed to improving facilities in health care,” Pathak said.
There are indications that Yogi Adityanath, too, might adopt a CHC or a PHC.
Meanwhile, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi sent three truckloads of wood to enable the poor to cremate their dead in Rae Bareli.
“Sonia ji had directed her representative KL Sharma ji to arrange wood for cremation and now the party cadres will help the poor in cremating their near and dear ones,” said party spokesman Vinay Dwivedi.
Cremation in Rae Bareli takes place at Gokna, Dalmau and Gegaso ghats on the banks of the Ganga and many poor people are burying their dead by the riverside in absence of money to buy firewood for their last rites. Several bodies of suspected Covid-19 patients were seen floating in Ganga at several places in UP earlier this month, prompting administration to step in with help to cremate bodies.
The Yogi government has announced ₹5,000 for cremation of all the poor in the villages, while the state’s labour welfare council too has separately announced ₹7,500 for the purpose.