Bangalore garden city or Covid city ?

By G S Radhakrishna

Aug 5, 2020

Bangalore: Bangalore, the capital of Karnataka, earlier popular as garden city, is on the verge of changing its tag. From garden city- to – garbage city, it’s latest tag is Covid city after accounting for nearly 50% of Covid cases and deaths of pandemic in the state.

According to statistics presented by the state Department of Health and Family Welfare Services, Bengaluru (both Urban and Rural districts) has reported over half (50.69 per cent) of the confirmed COVID-19 positive cases in the last few months, catapulting the tally in July.

A visit to some of graveyards of Bangalore city and towns of Karnataka exposes the bad state of affairs and illtreatment shown to deceased bodies of COVID-19. In Ballari town in north-east part of the state, bodies were dumped in pits as scavenger dogs and pigs roamed and feasted over them.

Basic protocols of human dignity were given a go by in disposals of Covid dead in many rural districts. Many bodies were brought from hospitals in lorries, JCBs or in vegetable Vendor carts as ambulances refused to ferry them out of either social stigma or scare of infection. Scared of putting them on pyre or lack of cremating facilities for large numbers daily, they were buried or just dumped collectively.

On July 31, the number of Covid positice cases were 55,544 and deaths were 1030 in the BBMP (Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagar Palike) area. In early March, the saffron brigade blamed the Tablighi returnees of Padarayapura, a Muslim settlement near city market for spreading Covid infections . But they have no voice now as the number of Covid + cases are spiking at rate of 2000 per day during July in spite of an extended lockdown and testing etc. Many Covid positive patients are stranded on roads, or ambulance as private hospitals refuse to take them and government hospitals have no free beds.

The COVID-19 management by the BJP government in the state led by BS Yediyurappa has earned the wrath of not only residents of Bangalore but also that of many district towns.

There were total 198 wards in Bengaluru of which, except in Aramane Nagar (Ward 35) and Rajagopal Nagar (Ward 70), rest of 196 have reported at least 30-50 positive cases each. The South Zone closer to Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Naidu is the worst hit till date with 26 % of total cases of Bangalore city.

Among the reasons for this splurge of cases is opening of the borders and inter state transportation across the state and the relaxation of lockdown in June end. The state itself has borders with five states- Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu. It was an avalanche when the government under political and industrial pressure opened up borders both internally and across the state borders.

As a result, as number of cases spiralled, there was no matching infrastructure of beds, ambulances and medical personnel to take care of them. A routine foul cry was that many asymptotic patients were crowding the hospitals without giving room for symptomatic Covid + patients who were in dire need of beds and ventilators in the absence of life saving drugs due the pandemic.

The geographical location of Bangalore city with proximity to AP and Tamil Nadu bordersleading was sighted for huge infiltration of people with or without Covid virus from border districts. Second reason is the shortfall of public health infrastructure. Very recently the government converted an indoor stadium into Covid Center with 10,000 beds. After Tablighi impact came down, the government relaxed and slackened contact tracing efforts which led to fatal results in coming weeks of June and July .

The politically anarchy / uncertainty under successive Cong- JD and now BJP rules has broken the back of administration and public health infrastructure in both the state and Bangalore. In entire south India, Bangalore and Karnataka have pioneered privatisation of education and healthcare and hence perhaps there is a deliberate negligence of public infrastructure in both of health and education sectors. The dons of private colleges and hospitals are equally represented in all political parties, some in cabinets as well of either Congress, BJP or JD.

Daily local channels spew out the lapses and corruption of private hospitals in over charging patients for testing etc. On Friday, a lactating motherof a seven day old died in an ambulance in Bangalore after shuttling from hospital to hospital for over 20 hours with no takers.

Some hospitals have been reprimanded and fined, some booked for overcharging the patients for Covid testing or for hospitalisation.But the travails of Covid patients and testing operations continues unabated in view of the huge numbers arriving at hospitals at a time. Fortunately, the crisis has not hit the doctors, nurses, drugs or ventilators and other personnel sectors.

Last week, the BJP government has also shifted the local BBMP Commissioner Anil Kumar and Police commissioner Bhaskar Rao following political pressure. Both were allegedly held for alarming size of missing Covid + cases from house quarantine, or hospitals itself. According to latest official statistics it is around 4000 missing positive patients, but unofficially the number is a whopping 11,000.( perhaps in entire Karnataka ?). Their absence, however, has loomed the threat of higher incidence of Covid cases in not only the city but also across the state.

The number of Covid cases in the state had crossed one lakh mark in July end. From the first Covid case on March 8, and 10,000 on June 24, the number had spiked to 25,000 cases on July 6 and 50,000 in July 1and crossed 1,00,034 on July 31 with Bangalore city recording 55,544 on its own.

Officials have their own explanation to the spiralling numbers- increase in Covid testing at over 30,000 per day. A resident of Bangalore rural Srinivas Holla says that the entire issue is mishandled as there is no proper tracking of patients and even testing is haphazard .

Perhaps, he echoes the opinion of many locals who feel BJP government opened floodgates of liquor sale, transportation across borders and opening of flights and train movements under political pressure.

It is said that Yediyurappa regime plans to open up shopping malls. Cinema halls and temples after Ayodhya foundation ceremony on August 5th. Covid or no- Covid it is all politics and mutual business interests that always come to the forefront in the governance polity in India.

The residents of Bangalore have to sit with fingers crossed as the pandemic is taking wilder and wilder shape. Officials however also blame it on residents for not wearing masks or maintaining social distancing. May be there is laxity on both sides, but the Covid virus is not sparing anyone.

–India News Stream