Special assembly session to formulate strategy to deal with Covid pandemic must be convened at earliest: Harpal  Cheema

… Annual budget for health services should be increased to 25 per cent

….Teachers should be stopped to come to schools and orders be released for online teaching from homes

Chandigarh, May 13

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) senior leader and Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the Punjab Assembly, Harpal Singh Cheema has appealed to Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to increase the annual budget for health services to 25 per cent; so that the bad situation in the state due to Covid-19 pandemic can be dealt with in a proper manner. Cheema demanded that a special session of the Legislative Assembly should be convened at the earliest to discuss the plan to formulate a strategy to deal with the ongoing pandemic. In a statement issued on Thursday, Cheema said that the Covid virus had badly affected other states of India and Union Territories including Punjab. He said that despite Punjab, being a rich and important state of India, the health facilities here are in a very bad condition.

“Due to the growing influence of Covid, the number of Corona patients in Punjab is increasing day by day,” said Cheema. He said that there were more than 4.5 lakh Covid patients in the state and the death toll had reached 11,000; much higher than the national average, which was a matter of great concern. Cheema said that although the government had stopped the students from coming to schools due to the Covid pandemic, it was unfair to force the teachers to come to school. Therefore, all teachers should be stopped from coming to the school and orders should be given to teach from their homes with online systems.

The LoP further said that the situation in Punjab was deteriorating due to Covid pandemic for which the Captain Amarinder Singh-led Congress government was responsible. “The irony in the state today is that government hospital buildings are visible, but there is no treatment in these buildings,” he added. Cheema said that the government hospitals were facing shortage of doctors, nurses, paramedical staff as well as life saving equipment, oxygen gas and medicines; whereas the government should have learned from last year’s Covid outbreak and made better arrangements in advance to combat the pandemic. Cheema said that the budget of the Punjab government for health facilities was very meager and considering the impact of Covid, this budget should be increased to 25% of the total budget of the state, so that the lives of the people could be saved by providing good health services in the hospitals.