On Thursday, Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development, Industry and Commerce, Information Technology, K.T Rama Rao slammed India Today journalist Rahul Kanwal for sharing "inaccurate" data of the number of PPEs (Personal Protective Equipment) available in the country in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
According to the graphic, Maharashtra has the most number of PPEs followed by Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Delhi. Maharashtra has 1,22,133 PPEs, Tamil Nadu has 1,13,715, Gujarat has 51,059 and Delhi has 33,452. The channel claims that Telengana has the least number of PPEs (in India's 12 most affected states) in its COVID-19 designated hospitals.
However, Telangana Minister K.T Rama Rao slammed journalist Rahul Kanwal and said, "If you don’t have accurate data, don’t publish nonsense & confuse people in these troubling times."
He added, "Will you & India today apologise if I prove that we have 100 times more PPEs than what you have projected here?"
Rao further said that the state has 3.6 lakh PPEs and more 6 lakh PPEs will be available soon.
"For your information; We currently have more than 3.6 lakh PPEs with us already and 6 more lakh PPEs will be with us shortly. I hope you will have the decency to withdraw this fake & baseless graphic," he said.
Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 945 in Telangana.
The death toll in the country due to COVID-19 rose to 681 and the number of cases to 21,393 on Thursday, according to the Union Health Ministry.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 16,454, while 4,257 people have been cured and discharged, one patient has migrated, it said.
