Tejasvi Surya vows crackdown on South Bengaluru hospitals for Covid-19 beds

Bangalore South MP L S Tejasvi Surya on Wednesday pledged to crack down on hospitals in his constituency that haven’t given half of their beds to the government for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

“I will wear a PPE kit myself and go to hospitals with Revenue Minister R Ashoka to enforce the 50% bed reservation,” he said.

According to him, several big hospitals in South Bengaluru haven’t revealed their actual bed capacity. He held three rounds of talks with the hospitals to free up beds for Covid-19 but it turned out that their bed capacities are “different from what they’re showing us”.

Surya vowed to visit every hospital having at least 30 beds and go to each floor to enforce the bed quota.

He claimed oxygen availability has improved. “Until two days ago, we used to get 77-80 metric tonnes of oxygen from the Jindal plant. We are now getting another 40 metric tonnes. The total availability is now 110-120 metric tonnes,” he said, adding 5,000 oxygen cylinders had been made available.

‘Metro will improve productivity'

Surya, meanwhile, said the upcoming metro line connecting the Silk Board junction, KR Puram and the airport would help increase productivity along the Outer Ring Road (ORR), which is notorious for traffic jams.

The Silk Board junction comes under Surya’s parliamentary constituency.

The 17-km stretch from the Silk Board junction to the ORR houses 80% of India’s semiconductor manufacturing companies that employ 8.5 lakh people, he said.

“Unfortunately, we’re wasting 2.5 lakh litres of diesel and petrol due to inefficient transport. The average travel speed is just 4-5 kmph. Metro is the only solution,” he added.