Expressing grief at the deaths and injury caused by the road accident in Almora district on Wednesday, the leader of Opposition in the Vidhan Sabha and Bharatiya Janata Party State president Ajay Bhatt has written to Chief Minister Harish Rawat stating that more lives could have been saved had the 108 emergency ambulance service been provided in the area as demanded repeatedly.
Bhatt stated to the media that on learning of the mishap in the morning, he talked to the Almora District Magistrate and the Ranikhet hospital superintendent regarding assistance for the injured and post mortem of the fatalities. He also talked to the Sushila Tiwari Government medical college and hospital in Haldwani asking that the best possible treatment be administered to the injured victims being referred from Ranikhet to Haldwani. Stating that though life cannot be measured in money, Bhatt wrote to CM Harish Rawat requesting him to facilitate ex-gratia of Rs10 lakh each for the families of the deceased and Rs5 lakh each for those injured in addition to facilitating free of cost medical treatment and medicines for them.
In his letter to the CM, Bhatt wrote that due to emergency ambulance facility not being provided at Bhatraunjkhan the same had to be called from other places due to which the ambulances arrived late. “In the past too, I had submitted a letter to the State administration seeking the posting of one 108 emergency ambulance at Bhatraunjkhan but this has not been done so far.”