Angry KTR hits out at false data about Telangana’s PPE stocks

Telangana IT Minister KT Rama Rao has taken a serious exception to an India Today report that the State has got the lowest number of Personal Protective Equipments in store to battle COVID-19.  PPEs are a must for doctors and paramedics to protect themselves.

Taking to Twitter, an upset KTR hit out at journalist Rahul Kanwal and said, “If you don’t have accurate data, don’t publish nonsense and confuse people in these troubling times.  Will you & India today apologize if I prove that we have 100 times more PPEs than what you have projected here? Sorry but this is disgraceful journalism.  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 and baseless graphic.”

On its part, India Today said that they had sourced the data from Union Health Ministry’s website.  “Dear KTR,  reporters checked again. Data is taken from Union Health Ministry records of Designated Covid Hospitals in Telangana. One snapshot is attached. We can update the numbers as soon as they reflect on government records,” he said.

The confusion is because of the source.  Government data is found to be outdated at times.