Bengaluru: Karnataka revenue minister R. Ashoka and Law and Parliamentary Affairs minister Basvaraj Bommai on Tuesday met Governor Vajubhai R. Vala at Raj Bhavan and briefed him about the measures taken to tackle Covid-19.
This happened just hours after rural development and panchayat raj minister K. S. Eshwarappa and senior BJP leaders like A. H. Vishwanath took exception to the Governor presiding over the all-party meeting that was convened on Tuesday evening. The venue of the meeting that was previously fixed at Raj Bhavan was shifted to the Chief Minister’s home office Krishna here.
Even the Opposition parties had taken serious objection to Vala presiding over the meeting on social media sites.
Briefing mediapersons after their meeting with Vala at Raj Bhavan, the revenue minister who also heads the Karnataka Disaster Management Committee, said that all that the Governor wanted to know was the state’s preparedness to handle the Covid situation, which we both briefed him about.
“He is deeply concerned about people complaining about shortage of oxygen, beds and medicines (antiviral drug Remdesivir). We told him that we are receiving 20,000 Remdesivir vials additionally, of which 10,000 vials will be given to private hospitals. Government hospitals have a stock of 25,000 vials already and they will keep this additional 10,000 vials with them as the number of patients treated in government facilities are more when compared to private hospitals,” Ashoka explained.
He added that the Governor also sought details about the number of beds, ventilators, stock of oxygen and other information which the government has given to him.
Answering a question, Ashoka said the Governor was more concerned about what measures would be taken to prevent a spike in Covid cases, which have seen an exponential jump in the last one month.
