Jharkhand chief minister Hemant Soren has taken a dig at the Narendra Modi-led Union government by claiming that the state ruled by the JMM-UPA alliance is left to fend for itself in the pandemic.

“When the whole country is going through this pandemic, state governments are dependent on the Centre for everything. When you (Centre) will not help us, where will we put our grievances? Soren said in an interview with a news channel and posted its clip on his Twitter handle.

“It is the duty of the central government who has central agencies to assist it to give timely alert to states on pandemic and other disaster but unfortunately the pandemic is yet to be declared a national disaster.”

The chief minister in the interview, which he has retweeted, says: “In this pandemic it is the responsibility of the Centre and the states to join hand and find out ways from solution. There would be time to take out political animosity not now. The Union government as a guardian should provide medicines, vaccines, oxygen and other resources to the state. Jharkhand should also have been given such aids. But states have been left to fend for themselves.”

Soren further adds that Jharkhand is facing politics, as it is a non-BJP ruled state.

“We are the top state in supplying oxygen to other states and even to abroad. However, we have to take permission from the Centre to use oxygen produce in our territory through allotment. I had even spoken to Union home minister Amit Shahji but he too talked about allotment. We had sought support from Union defence minister Rajnath Singh and Union road transport minister, Nitin Gadkari in bringing back the bodies of workers in Border Road Organisation (BRO) projects. But we did not receive any help and had to airlift bodies on our own expense,” Soren said.

Soren also said Jharkhand got only 1.5 lakh vaccines against a requirement of 12 lakh vaccines doses per month for age group of 18 to 44 years. For above 45 years, the state got only 6 lakh vaccines per month while the requirement is 15 lakh.

Hitting out at the Prime Minister, Soren said in the interview: “It seems that the Prime Minister speaks to chief ministers of states on phone just to enhance political TRP as the chief ministers are not given time to speak about problems of their states nor any solution to their state specific problem is given by the Prime Minister himself.”

The Dasam Falls, overflowing after heavy rains in the aftermath of Cyclone Yaas, at the Bundu area of Ranchi on Friday PTI

The chief minister had also retweeted a tweet of his party JMM to prove slighting of Opposition ruled states comparing vaccines data of Jharkhand with the BJP-ruled Gujarat and the BJP-JDU ruled Bihar.

“Gujarat population – 6.2 crore, vaccine received – 1.62 crore…. Jharkhand population - 3.25 crore, vaccine received - 48 lakh…. Bihar population – 12.8 crore, vaccine received - 1 crore…” the tweet said.

Soren also retweeted his party JMM tweet on the Centre admitting technical error in its portal which had inflated the vaccine wastage numbers and that the Centre would be coordinating with states to resolve the issue.

On May 26, figures from the Centre put Jharkhand wastage at 6.44 per cent as against the press release issued on the same day by the Union health ministry which had put Jharkhand as top waster of vaccine with a percentage of over 37 per cent.

Jharkhand director National Health Mission, Ravishankar Shukla on May 27, had written to additional secretary Union health ministry, Vikash Sheel for correction of the wastage data shown in the PIB release.

Soren also expressed concern for not being allowed to speak in the interaction with deputy commissioners of districts.

“During the discussion with deputy commissioners of the districts, the chief ministers were also asked to be

present depending on their availability. However, the PMO speaking to deputy commissioners and not giving opportunity to CMs to speak will create imbalance in the federal structure of governance and is not a good precedent,” he said.

Vaccine import

Soren informed on Friday evening that 3,000 oxygen cylinders have been imported from the UAE and handed over to Jharkhand by Tata Steel under the Corporate social responsibility.

Another 2,000 cylinders will be arriving in a week and all the cylinders will be dedicated for public use.

Bridge probe

The chief minister on Friday afternoon directed for constitution of a high-level team to probe into the reason for collapse of the Haradih-Budhadih bridge on the Kanchi river at Tamar near Ranchi.

The bridge collapsed on Thursday due to the impact of the cyclonic storm.

The bridge was constructed three years ago.

Jharkhand rural development minister Alamgir Alam constituted a three-member probe committee on Friday evening comprising road construction department engineer-in-chief, building construction chief engineer and Jharkhand state rural development authority chief engineer.