Readers respond: Govt needs to plan lockdown exit, mitigate migrants’ pain, poor patients’ troubles 

The effects of the government’s unplanned lockdown in the country have begun to manifest themselves at various towns and cities in the country as per news one comes across

Readers respond: Govt needs to  plan lockdown exit, mitigate migrants’ pain, poor patients’ troubles 
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NH Web Desk

A glimpse of lockdown exit?

The chaos witnessed after India’s ‘dry-spell’ ended with liquor shops opening across the country and people pouring out onto the streets and standing in queues for hours to stock up are an indication that the government needs to plan its moves very carefully indeed when the lockdown is lifted in phases and various categories of businesses are opened.

Bengaluru saw serpentine queues and flouting of social distancing norms was a common sight. And such was the frenzy in Delhi that the state government imposed an unexpectedly high 70% ‘special corona fee’ on all brands and categories of liquor. In Mumbai, a five-hour flip-flop within the bureaucracy over whether liquor shops be allowed to function led to people for hours when the order finally came. Many had to return empty-handed as majority of owners decided to open on Tuesday morning.

Ritesh Malsure

Central Vista project steams on

It came as no surprise that the Expert Appraisal Committee (EAC) of the Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) recommended granting of Environmental Clearance (EC) to the expansion and renovation of the existing Parliament building on March 2. Even in the midst of a raging COVID-19 pandemic, this government seems hell bent on pushing through its fancy Central Vista renovation project that would cost the nation a whopping Rs 20,000 crore, even while the healthcare facilities are in shambles and millions of people are sleeping on empty stomachs.

The move came just a couple of days after the Supreme Court declined a prayer to stay the Central Vista project in a fresh plea challenging it. “During COVID-19 situation, nobody is going to do anything and there is no urgency,” CJI S A Bobde had remarked during the hearing on April 30. Instead of wasting such stupendous amounts of money on such fanciful projects at a time of such economic distress in the country, the government needs to scrap them and devote itself to the task of building the nation from the ground up. For, the real cost of such a long national lockdown would show up in the weeks and months to come, with millions of people virtually at a point where they don’t even have money to eat two square meals, let alone attend to other demands of life.

Shilpa Sethi


Alleviate suffering of poor patients

I came across a recent news item that Delhi High Court has directed the government to place on record a list of hospitals where outstation patients who have been The puritanical movement called Tabligh Mail your letters, not exceeding 150 words, to uttam.sengupta@nationalheraldindia.com camping outside AIIMS could receive free-of-cost treatment for non COVID-19 ailments. This is a welcome move.

Hundreds of outstation patients and their attendants, who were earlier being provided treatment at AIIMS, Delhi are being denied treatment as AIIMS has been converted into an exclusive facility to treat COVID-19 patients. The poor living conditions of such patients is well-known. The patients and their attendants live in raen baseras opposite AIIMS, where social distancing norms can hardly be expected to be maintained. Many such patients suffer from serious ailments such as cancer and run the risk of contracting the virus. The State needs to rise to the occasion and do all it can be to alleviate the suffering of such people.

Neerja Jain

No end to migrants’ woes

The effects of the government’s unplanned lockdown in the country have begun to manifest them- selves at various towns and cities in the country as per news one comes across. Migrants in Surat, desperate to return home to UP, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, clashed with the police.

Similar scenes were seen in Bengaluru when hundreds of migrant workers turned violent following rumours that the temporary camp where they had gathered, was actually a quarantine facility. The police also resorted to a lathicharge in Pune after a crowd of migrants gathered at Warje police station to fill forms and blocked the road. One wonders how the government failed to foresee such a situation and take pre-emptive action.

Shantanu Patel

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