The Karnataka government has set up an inquiry committee to investigate the alleged irregularities during Covid-19 management under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) rule. The committee will be headed by former Karnataka High Court judge John Michael D’Cunha. According to The Hindu, the committee has been asked to complete its investigation in three months and file its report.
Reports said that the committee has been asked to enquire into the purchase and procurement of medicines, rapid antigen test kits, Covid-19 management equipment, and purchase and distribution of ventilators by the Health and Medical Education departments. The probe is also expected to look at deaths due to an oxygen crisis.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the state legislature in July-August 2021, stated that the BJP government failed to handle the pandemic and recommended a detailed investigation by an independent committee. The PAC report was tabled in the Assembly in July 2023 which stated that the Health Department had failed to provide documents on the purchases of medicine, equipment, bed allocation in hospitals, reimbursement of treatment costs to private hospitals, and other expenses by various government departments while managing the pandemic.
The PAC also pointed out discrepancies in the recording of the deaths due to Covid-19. The PAC said that there were 1,57,914 more deaths from January to July in 2020. But according to the Health Department’s records, there were only 37,206 deaths during the same period.