Dissatisfied with the arrangements for the Haridwar Maha Kumbh, the Uttarakhand High Court has asked the government to complete all the unfinished work by February 22.
During the hearing on Wednesday, government officials told the court that 85 percent of the work had been completed. Work on the remainder is going ahead on war-footing.
The court has asked the state government to make available the information sought by the Central government regarding the Kumbh Mela so that the SOPs can be issued regarding the Maha Kumbh.
Apart from this, the court has asked the district judge Haridwar to submit the details of beds, ventilators, ICUs, equipments and staff etc. available in the hospitals of Haridwar and Rishikesh by February 21. At the same time, the court has also directed the Chief Secretary, Haridwar DM, Meladhikari and Health Secretary to appear in court on February 22.
The Division bench of Chief Justice R.S. Chauhan and Justice Manoj Kumar Tiwari was hearing the PILs filed by Advocate Dushyant Mainali, Dehradun resident Sachidanand Dabral and others to help and provide better healthcare to the migrants returning to the quarantine centres and Covid hospitals in Uttarakhand.
The court asked how many devotees come to the Kumbh Mela, the officials said that the number of devotees in Kumbh reaches about 10 lakhs while during the festival the number of devotees reaches 50 lakhs. On this, the High Court directed the state government to put up so many tents in the fair premises that 50 lakh people can live in them. The court also gave instructions to provide food to the devotees and proper corona testing should be available for them.
In compliance with the previous order of the High Court, the health secretary, fair officer and district magistrate Haridwar appeared in the court through video conferencing. During this time, everyone told the court about the preparations for the Kumbh Mela, but the court was not satisfied with it.
In the case of bad quarantine centres in the past, the secretary of the District Legal Services Authority had submitted in the court its detailed report that all the quarantine centres in Uttarakhand are in a bad situation and no proper arrangement has been made for the migrants there by the government.
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Taking cognizance of this, the court ordered the monitoring committees to be constituted under the chairmanship of the District Magistrates for regular monitoring of the hospitals and sought suggestions from these committees.