Telangana: Uttam Kumar Reddy demands free Covid treatment to all BPL families

Hyderabad: Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy strongly demanded the State government that all 80 lakh families who under the below poverty line in the State should be provided with free treatment for Covid-19.

He also demanded that ambulances should be provided at nominal charges for transport of the Covid patients, and non-BPL families should be provided treatment at private hospitals at regulated charges. He made it clear that the government should ease the burden on the middleclass and the poor sections immediately.

Addressing the media online on Thursday, Uttam said that due to the incompetence of the State and the Central governments, many people were on the verge of death. He said that families together have been extinguished by the Covid.

Adding that many States have been providing treatment to Covid at free of cost, he said the Telangana people were deprived of that facility. He said that Rs 10 lakh ex gratia was also being provided in other States, while no such respite exists in Telangana.

Citing the comments of Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao that Ayushman Bharat Scheme of the Centre was useless, Uttam said that a very few families would be covered by it and it was not at all useful.

The TPCC chief lamented that Covid has been casting unbearable burden on the poor families.

He said that due to the incompetence of the government about Rs 20,000 to Rs 25,000 has been collected for ambulance, Rs 50,000 per one oxygen bed, and Rs 1.50 lakh has been charged for ventilator bed by the hospitals.

He said that for the last one-and-a-half years the Congress has been demanding the government to consider Covid as a natural calamity so that the affected could be protected.

Citing the comments of the Chief Minister that people were unnecessarily spending lakhs of rupees in private hospitals, Uttam said that the people have been opting private hospitals as there was no infrastructure in government hospitals.

He called upon the party leaders and workers to take up relief works for the benefit of Covid affected families at the hospitals, burial grounds on the occasion of 30th death anniversary of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Friday. He wanted them to help the illiterate to register their names for the vaccination drive.