No ventilator kept in inventory by Centre, every ready lot promptly dispatched to states/UTs: Govt

Contrary to media reports, the Union government ensured that all ventilators were delivered to the states/UTs during the second Covid-19 wave, the Health Ministry has said.

The Centre on Thursday dismissed as "without any basis” and “factually incorrect" media reports which claimed that the government kept 13,000 unused ventilators during the Covid-19 second wave crisis and that these were not delivered to the states/UTs. "There are no ventilators which have been kept in the inventory by the central government and not given to states that needed them. Every lot of ventilators which is ready for dispatch is getting dispatched to the states and UTs promptly. Therefore, the observations and interpretations drawn in the article are not based on facts," the health ministry said in a statement.