Remdesivir at double the market price, Shiv Sena-controlled BMC is making billions out of people’s misery

The Shiv Sena leaders are allegedly minting billions of dollars through Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) by cashing out people’s misery. The urban local body of India’s richest city is allegedly purchasing Remdesivir injections at double the rate of the quoted price, according to various people on social media who tweeted the original copies of the purchase receipt.

Remdesivir quoted a price of 665 rupees per vial but the BMC purchased it at 1,568 rupees, almost two and a half times more than the market rate. So, the whole bureaucracy involved in the purchase is gulping around 900 rupees per injection, and the majority of it is definitely going to Shiv Sena – the political party that controls BMC – itself.

Since the pandemic started, the Shiv Sena officials have allegedly used the Covid rules and regulations, as well as public expenditure on Covid, as a money minting machine to siphon off thousands of crores of rupees for the party as well as for themselves.

A few days ago, an investigation by mid-day revealed that a handful of civic officials deployed at the international airport seem to be actively contributing to the explosion of daily cases of coronavirus which are now over 11,000. For only Rs 10,000-Rs 12,000, these staffers are letting passengers from foreign lands escape the compulsory seven-day institutional quarantine.

Mid-day came across many passengers evading the mandatory quarantine with the help of BMC officials in Mumbai through an elaborate arrangement to make their exit from the airport look perfectly compliant with all norms. During the course of the investigation, while tailing multiple international flyers from the airport to their respective hotels where they were supposed to be kept for institutional quarantine, it was found that post-check-in, these foreign travellers departed to their homes. The investigation also found that BMC officials who are tasked with keeping a tab on the status of supposed individuals who have been quarantined have a rather elaborate ‘setting’ with the hotels and get paid handsomely to turn a blind eye to the illegalities.

As per civic guidelines, put up on BMC’s portal, international passengers above 65 years of age needing support, pregnant women, parents with children below five years, people with a serious illness and those who landed in the city in extreme family distress conditions are permitted home isolation. All other flyers must undergo institutional quarantine for seven days, says the SOP. However, the BMC does not seem much concerned about such guidelines, and for a sufficient amount, is allowing almost anybody to escape institutional quarantine.

In another investigation report published today, mid-day reported that many tours and travel operators are issuing Covid-19 negative report to passengers only for 300 rupees. To quote the report, “They (operators) claimed their fake certificates are more powerful than genuine ones as they have arrangements with cops posted on state borders who allow them to jump lines while bus operators following rules have to wait for several hours.”

If the above two reports are to be believed, the richest civic body in the country with an annual budget of more than 25,000 crore rupees – more than the budget of many states – has been totally corrupted by Shiv Sena officials and is being used to extort money from poor migrant labourers who are struggling to meet their ends amid the Covid surge.

It is no surprise that a Covid-explosion has struck the state of Maharashtra. With such scant enforcement of rules, the alleged corruption and ineptitude of the BMC are contributing to an unprecedented spike in Covid-cases not just in Maharashtra, but across the country. For their alleged corruption, ordinary citizens’ livelihoods are once again getting affected detrimentally, as an even more inept state government announces fresh curbs across Maharashtra. The BMC officials involved in such criminalities deserve to be locked up and dealt with severely for compromising India’s fight against the Chinese pandemic.