Day 2 in Office: West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee's Clear Message to Centre, 'Allow Us to Work'

KOLKATA: After swearing-in as the chief minister of West Bengal, TMC supremo, Mamata Banerjee told the Centre to accept the people's mandate and allow the state government to work on the Covid crisis.

"We do not want to quarrel with you now," Banerjee said.

Further, as per reports, the West Bengal government will use the state's 275,000 quacks as the first line of defence against the second wave of Covid-19, which has registered a 5- 8 times jump in rural Bengal over last year's peak.

Meanwhile, the daily count of Covid-19 cases in Bengal has shot up more than 20 times since March 27, when the eight-phase state assembly elections took off. Read more

On the other hand, Bengal chief minister has requested the centre to allocate at least 550 MT of oxygen.

"... consumption of medical oxygen is increasing rapidly due to increase in Covid positive cases. It has gone up to 470 MT per day in the last 24 hours and expected to increase to 550 MT in the next seven to eight days," she wrote. Read more

Banerjee said the Bengal Chief Secretary had already raised this issue with senior central government officials, including the Union Health Secretary.

"However, instead of allocating the same... Government of India has increased allocation to other states, from the total production in West Bengal during the last 10 days, from 230 MT to 306 MT... keeping the allocation for West Bengal constant at 308 MT," the Chief Minister said.

Notably, Bengal produces around 560 MT of medical oxygen, of which it is currently using only 470 MT.

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