In Congress-ruled Rajasthan, 1,500 ventilators received under the PM CARES Fund are lying unused and unopened. These ventilators were received over ten months back. A Dainik Bhaskar report states that of these 1,500 ventilators, 230 are faulty but even amid the raging Chinese coronavirus pandemic, these ventilators have not been repaired and put to use.
As of now, 6,33,951 people have tested positive for Chinese coronavirus in Rajasthan of which 1,89,178 are active cases. 4,558 people have lost their lives in Rajasthan due to COVID till now.
The report says that in Jodhpur, of the 100 ventilators received under PM CARES Fund, not a single one was put to use. After state capital Jaipur, Jodhpur tops the state in number of deaths due to COVID. The 100 ventilators received are faulty but they have not been repaired.
Similarly in Jaipur’s SMS Medical College, 50 ventilators were installed in February this year in an ICU. However, these were put to use for the first time only few days back. 18 other ventilators here are not working since past 6 months. Similarly, other ventilators in other medical colleges are also faulty.
In Kota, medical colleges were given 138 ventilators. Of these, 65 were either not installed or they were removed as they were reportedly faulty. Udaipur got 95 ventilators, which stayed in a store house for a year. Of these, 22 were installed but they kept switching off. Finally on April 5, 2021, 32 were updated.
According to Vaibhav Galriya, Medical Health Secretary, the state government is utilising all installed ventilators. Some ventilators received from Central government are not yet installed and the state government is talks with the installation company and a team is assigned to install the ventilators.
As per doctors, Rajasthan is currently in need of 1,000 more ventilators.
Unused PM CARES ventilators in Jharkhand
In April, 2021, it was reported that 60 ventilators procured under the PM CARES Fund were lying unused. The ventilators were covered in cloth, boxed and gathering dust. As of now, Jharkhand has 2,44,472 total coronavirus cases of which 58,519 are active cases.