The Opposition and Treasury benches traded barbs and accused each other of politicising the recent incident of fire at Trauma Centre at King George’s Medical University for narrow political gains.
The Samajwadi Party accused the BJP government that it has a strong tendency to put the blame for all ills plaguing the state on the Samajwadi Party.
The BJP said that the party came to power barely four months ago and could not be held accountable for the incident. The government said that the matter has been investigated and the guilty howsoever big and influential would not be spared and would be brought to justice.
The government also announced that it has sought reports from all state-run medical colleges about fire safety system in place in each medical college.
leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary alleged that the ministers were doing nothing and only blaming the previous governments.
The issue was raised by BSP member Uma Shankar Singh through an Adjournment notice and said that this was not the first incident of fire and similar incidents have occurred in the past too. “It’s a clear case of carelessness and flagrant violation of fire safety norms by the authorities of KGMU,” he said.
Singh alleged that the fire at Trauma Centre was engineered as the audit team had sought records of drug purchase during the last five years.
Former Speaker and BSP legislator Sukhdeo Rajbhar alleged that the fires in government buildings have become a ‘fashion’ in UP. “Fire is engineered in government offices only to destroy records to prevent detection of financial irregularities and scam,” he alleged.
Opposition members were on their feet as soon as Medical Education minister Ashutosh Tandon alleged that the previous Samajwadi Party government in its over zeal to project its narrative of development, inaugurated incomplete buildings of the hospital. He said that the buildings of lohia hospital and Cancer hospital were inaugurated by former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.
Tandon asked the Opposition to refrain from politicising the incident of fire at the Trauma Centre. He criticised the Samajwadi Party leader who visited the Trauma Centre and accused the government for it. He said that there were two issues involved—incident of fire and action taken against the guilty by the government.
Tandon said that the Chief Minister immediately constituted a committee for inquiry. He said that the authorities not only controlled the fire but also prevented it from spreading to other floors of the Trauma Centre.
Intervening in the debate, Health minister Siddarthnath Singh said that the Opposition should not create a dispute over the issue. He said there were ` Standard Operating Procedures’ (SOP) and other protocols for the issue of license for the hospital to start operation. He said that fire safety audit is done once a year and fire drill twice a year in all hospitals.
“Records reveal that no such exercise was ever undertaken in hospitals in the state. For this saerious lapse, minister Ashutosh Tandon cannot be held responsibleas it was the responsibility of the previous SP and the BSP government,’’ said Singh.
The minister assured the House that the government will implement fire safety protocol in all existing hospitals and all hospitals under construction.
Parliamentary Affairs minister Suresh Kumar Khanna said that Divisional Commissioner of lucknow is investigating the incident and would submit his report to the government by Tuesday night.
On Saturday evening, a major fire broke out at the Trauma Centre in which around 250 critical patients had to be evacuated. later, it was reported that 15 critical patients died during the shifting to other hospitals though the government accepted the death of six patients. The state government has announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs 2 lakh to the family of those who died during shifting after the fire.