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Image Credit - TOI[/caption]The latest Covid-19 wave has carried out devastation in the biggest cities of India and now it is ravaging the rural areas all across the second-most populous country in the world. Most of the villages in India do not have any means to fight the deadly virus.
A village called Basi, which is almost 1.5 hours of drive away from New Delhi, almost three-quarters of the village has fallen sick as 5,400 people are infected and 30 people have died in the first three weeks. There are no health care facilities in the village and no oxygen canisters and also no doctors. And, unlike the social media literate urban population of India, the residents of the village are not able to appeal on Twitter to the army of strangers who are very much willing to help.
The newly elected head of the farming community, Sanjeev Kumar has said that most of the deaths in the villages are majorly caused due to the lack of oxygen. He also added that the sick are rushed to the district headquarters and those patients who are extremely sick have to travel for more than four hours. Most of those patients are not able to make it in time.
The scenario has been playing out all over India. Officials have outlined the scale of the carnage by speaking through interviews with representatives from more than 18 villages and towns from different parts of the country. Some of the families are entirely wiped out as bloated bodies can be seen floating down the river Ganges to farmland that is left untended because of lack of workers.
According to many people, the scale of the crisis is very big and it is more than the official numbers that are revealed. The villagers are afraid to leave their homes even if they have mild fevers. The virus fatalities are not properly recorded as the local authorities are failing to keep track of it. Since the start of the pandemic, 274,390 deaths have been reported by India and these are figures from the health ministry.
There is a build-up of anger at Prime Minister Modi’s administration and also at the local authorities as they failed to bolster the medical infrastructure because of the virus wave last year. This also includes securing sufficient supplies of vaccines and oxygen. The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has lost local elections in Basi last month and also in other parts of Uttar Pradesh- the most populous state in India as the country has started recording more than 400,000 new cases every day.
It is suggested by the sentiments on the ground that broader troubles are awaiting Prime Minister Modi and also Yogi Adityanath, his fellow Bharatiya Janata Party leader, and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh who is also mentioned as the possible successor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Uttar Pradesh is going to hold its upcoming elections next year.
