The Allahabad High Court on Friday expressed surprise that though the ground reality related to dengue is very pitiable in the city, everything is being said to be fine in government records.
The Lucknow bench of the high court said that if it had its own agency, it would have definitely cross-checked the government data, which stressed that the situation is under control and there is no lack of beds and other facilities in the government hospitals to check vector-borne diseases in the capital.
A bench of justices D K Upadhyay and Saurabh Srivastava passed these remarks while hearing the UP government's reply to a PIL raising the issue of dengue menace in the city. The bench fixed the next hearing on November 9.
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On Thursday, the Allahabad High Court directed the Uttar Pradesh government to place before it the action plan to curb the menace of vector-borne diseases in the city.
Earlier, in compliance with Thursday's order, additional chief standing counsel Amitabh Rai placed the instructions obtained from the state government apprising the bench that the government was taking every step to check the menace and has made medicines and beds available in government hospitals, including KGMU and Ram Manohar Lohia.
“The beds meant for dengue patients are lying vacant and there are no patients who were returned without admission in the hospitals," Rai insisted.
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Directing the state counsel to file details he received from the government in an affidavit, the bench directed him to indicate in the affidavit the steps which might have been taken, if they were required, under the provisions of the Uttar Pradesh Prevention and Control of Malaria, Dengue, Kala-Azar and any Vector Borne Disease Regulations, 2016.
The bench also directed the state counsel to state in the affidavit whether the experts in the National Centre for Vector Borne Diseases Control, were consulted for not only treating the patients suffering from vector-borne diseases but also for prevention of the same.
"Affidavit shall also indicate as to what measures are taken by the state authorities for educating the people of the dangers of the vector-borne diseases and the preventive measures, which are to be taken”, the bench added.
Meanwhile, the bench also asked Municipal Corporation's counsel Namit Sharma to file an affidavit to be sworn in by none other than its Commissioner himself indicating the steps which were taken by it for checking the growth of mosquitoes and for ensuring sanitation in general in the city.
(Inputs from PTI)
