No rest to politics in pandemic
Have our political parties become completely attuned to playing their games at every given opportunity? They simply do not rest even when the country is facing the severe second wave of Covid-19.
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Picture this: The Centre had earlier taken it upon itself to supply ventilators to the State and now vaccines too. Subsequently, the State will not be able to make any direct purchases. And aren’t we aware of the love (read love lost) between the centre and all the head of the States in power? Wouldn’t it be easier for the Centre to directly allocate funds to the State through the Prime Minister’s relief fund and permit them to purchase the vaccines and ventilator machines directly from wherever they wished? It would have created more transparency and less friction between the Centre and the States not ruled by the BJP.
Wishful thinking, this. It’s only a matter of time before we see fireworks in that direction.
Altaf Shah, Vasco
100% vaccination by December?
Grandiose announcements by ministers and PM notwithstanding, the target of vaccinating the whole Indian population by December appears to be a pipe dream, a well thought out feint to deflect the glancing blow dealt by the Supreme Court as regards the government’s vax policy. As per the Centre’s own estimates, the budgeted provision of Rs 35,000 crore for doses will now climb to Rs 50,000 crores if this stiff target is to achieved, on top of this the Centre also has to somehow generate an additional Rs 90,000 crore to provide food grains to 80 crore beneficiaries as promised by the Pradhan Sevak.
If the goal of 100% vaccination is to be achieved, the government will have to step up average vaccination levels close to five times from the existing numbers. Laggards like UP and Bihar will have to increase vax numbers eightfold which is a very steep target given the resources or the lack of them thereof.
The best performing State so far Himachal Pradesh which has vaccinated 38.1% of the adult population and fully vaccinated 7.9% (both doses) will have to raise its daily average from 18,000 to 41,000 persons; on similar lines Kerala will have to boost its numbers by 2.8 X to meet the December deadline. Five of India’s six most populous states face the uphill task of increasing inoculation by a factor of five. With the Centre permanently at loggerheads with the States there is not a chance that all Indians shall get the jab by December.
Vinay Dwivedi, Benaulim
Faulty pricing policy of vaccines
New pricing policy of corona-vaccination with private hospitals getting these at exorbitant prices from vaccine-manufacturing companies as compared to earlier that too with heavy price-difference between of Covishield and Covaxin respectively at Rs 780 and Rs 1410 per dose as against Rs 150 uniformly for both will make people rush towards Covaxin in government-provided free-centres rather than towards Covishield. It will result in free slots of Covaxin at government-centres booked instantly. Otherwise also, since only experts in handling mobile phones and computers can register through Apps and websites, free slots of Covaxin will be grabbed by those leaving ordinary people to have inferiorly priced Covishield.
Initial system of providing corona-vaccination free at government-centres and at Rs 250 in private hospitals was working smoothly with even walk-in facility feasible at all centres for all age-groups with first or second dose.
New system will deprive ordinary people of much demanded Covaxin.
Subhash Chandra Agrawal, Delhi
Police Act 1861 needs to be improved
The controversy which has enveloped the Mumbai Police is not just on account of a few dubious policemen. It is partly created by a legal framework which opens the door for unaccountable policing. This environment, in turn, encourages some policemen to turn rogue.
Police Act 1861, a colonial era legislation, guides the legal framework of policing was drafted in the wake of the Revolt of 1857. The law provided for policing where neither arbitrariness nor interference by State authorities was restrained. The India Justice Report 2020, a civil society initiative led by Tata Trusts, points out that the “police pillar” which is the Police Act 1861 needs a thorough overhaul. In its current form, it doesn’t do enough to check arbitrary arrests, fake encounters and death by torture. Existing police system suffers from myriad deficiencies. Thus, it is vital for States to implement the Supreme Court’s directions in letter and spirit. From time to time, several commissions have looked into the reform processes, no substantial changes have been seen.
The Supreme Court in 2006 also came up with a landmark judgment in the Prakash Singh Case, where the court made seven-point directives to the Centre and State governments. However, till date, these have not seen the light of the day.
KG Vilop, Chorao
End fire mishaps to avoid deaths
The recent chemical factory tragedy in Maharashtra’s Pune district is another in a list of similar ones in the not too distant past. That 17 poor labourers lost their lives in the deadly fire in Pirangut town points to the gravity of the tragedy. The gory incident shows how safety norms are thrown out of the window in such establishments. Safety measures seemed so brittle that no lessons were learnt from a fire of a small magnitude that reportedly broke out in the same factory a few days ago. The water purification plant used chlorine dioxide as a disinfectant, and the making of the latter by sodium chlorite or sodium chlorate, must have sparked the inferno.
The factory owners may not have taken note of the permissible levels of chlorine dioxide in air. The alcohol in the sanitisers, stocked in the factory, would have help spread the fire entrapping hapless workers. It is said that about 20000 to 30000 of 500 ml sanitiser bottles had piled up in the unit —- the owners lacked the requisite permission to prepare or repackage sanitisers. In pressure situations involving inflammable gases, explosion leads to fire. In any case, visible negligence is shocking.
Evidently, safety rules were flouted with disdain. Top officials of the district have lamented the absence of emergency exit in the establishment. There were little fire safety norms in place and negligible fire fighting tools in function.
It is high time precautionary steps are taken on war footing. Erring chemical gas companies have to be closed down while reallocating the employees suitably. It is also imperative to have a relook at the National Factories Act of 1948 to provide it more teeth. Most of our ‘Acts’ remain only on paper, and the authorities wake up from their slumber after a major tragedy to go to sleep again, and the incident fades from public memory.
Ganapathi Bhat, Akola
Electronic I-T filing portal
The new income tax electronic filing portal launched on Monday got off to a false start, with users struggling to access the site for the second successive day. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman quickly sent a missive to technology provider Infosys to resolve the complaints and glitches. Sitharaman hoped that Infosys and Nandan Nilekani would deliver and not let down the taxpayers. The I-T bellwether, which bagged the contract in 2019, needs to fix the teething problem soon to redeem itself.
One may recall that the Goods and Services Tax Network (GSTN) portal, also set up by Infosys, had faced initial glitches after its launch.
N J Ravi Chander, Bengaluru
