Health Ministry appoints nodal officer to disclose list of COVID-19 hospitals

Days after the Central Information Commission's (CIC) "advise", the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has designated a nodal officer to disclose the list of COVID-19 hospitals across the country on its website.

The CIC direction on June 5 to appoint a nodal officer within 15 days of its order to examine the issue and disclose the list came on a complaint filed by transparency activist Venkatesh Nayak, who sought the details through an RTI query.

The MoHFW issued the order appointing Deputy Secretary Saranga Dhar Nayak as the nodal officer on Monday.

In its order on June 5, the CIC had noted that two Union Ministers provided numbers of COVID-19 hospitals through official channels but the MoHFW refused to publicise the locations of such facilities claiming it has no such details.

The ministers could not have given such details without the existence of a list but the MoHFW officials have "feigned ignorance of the facts" stated by the ministers, Chief Information Commissioner Bimal Jhulka had said in his order.

"There is no reason why the list of such hospitals and treatment centres cannot be made public suo motu under Section 4(1)(b) of the RTI Act," the CIC had said.

Nayak had on April 17 sought district-wise details of facilities designated as COVID-19 hospitals across the country through an RTI query with the Ministry.

In his complaint to the CIC, he had pointed out that an article by Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar was posted on the website of government's media arm Press Information Bureau (PIB) on May 5, which said the country then had 700 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with over two lakh isolation beds and 15,000 ICU beds.

On May 13, the MoHFW issued a statement on Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan's review meeting with Punjab government in which he was quoted as saying that the country has 900 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals with 1,79,882 beds and 2,040 dedicated COVID-19 health centres with 1,29,689 beds besides with 8,708 quarantine centres and 5,577 COVID-19 Care Centres with 4,93,101 beds.

In his order, Jhulka said the statements of both the ministers "presuppose the existence of a list of such hospitals and treatment centres" in the custody of MoHFW. Without such a list, he said, the Ministers would not have been able to mention the aggregate figures in their writings and discussions.

Last month, the Central Information Commission had asked the Ministry of Labour and Employment to make public details of stranded migrant labourers after the office of Chief Labour Commissioner (CLC) responded to an RTI query by Nayak that such data was not available with it. Following the CIC direction, DH reported, the office of CLC on June 2 uploaded the data.