Goyal forced NABARD to issue statement to hide demonetisation scam: Congress
New Delhi, June 23: The Congress on Saturday alleged Finance Minister Piyush Goyal had "forced" NABARD to issue a statement to hide the demonetisation scam by BJP President Amit Shah and demanded a thorough investigation.
"Piyush Goyal forced the NABARD to issue a press statement, which far from addressing the core issue of the allegation looked like a BJP statement embedded on Nabard's website, since it only sought to defend Amit Shah," Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera told media at a press conference here.
He alleged that NABARD deliberately omitted its own RTI findings which reflected that a whopping Rs 3,118.51 crore worth of old notes were deposited within these five days in 11 Gujarat Co-operative Banks closely associated with BJP leaders.
"And district Co-operative banks in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ruled states and its allies ruled states had received a massive 64.18 per cent i.e Rs 22,270.80 crore of the entire amount deposited in these banks in just five days," Khera said.
The Congress leader's remarks came a day after the National Bank for Agriculture & Rural Development (NABARD) attributed the highest deposits at ADCB to the latter's massive size and performance, saying it conducted 100 per cent verification which revealed that the bank had complied with all the KYC guidelines of the RBI while accepting the demonetised notes.
IANS had done a story on Thursday based on a RTI reply which said that a bank with Amit Shah as a director collected the highest amount of banned notes among DCCBs (District Central Cooperative Banks).
Khera said: "Goyal tweeted a piece of ‘Yellow Journalism' directly taken out of the Sangh eco-system and tried extremely hard to somehow clutch at straws by holding on to such childish gibberish - a hallmark of RSS-BJP intellectual universe."
"It would have pertinent for the Modi government to answer our simple questions and order a thorough investigation in the spike of demonetised note deposits in the district co-operative banks."
He also called on Goyal to "shed this holier-than-thou attitude and as temporary Finance Minister, order an impartial enquiry into the entire gamut of transactions during Modi made disaster of demonetisation, which is now turning out to be the biggest scam of the century".
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Jhansi fire: Nurse's heroic efforts helped save over dozen babies
Lucknow/Jhansi (UP), Nov 17: Nurse Megha James was on duty when the fire broke out at the Jhansi hospital and she threw herself headlong into the rescue efforts, playing a hero's role by saving several babies.
Even when her salwar got burned, she refused to give up and was able to evacuate 14-15 babies with others' help.
"I had gone to take a syringe to give an injection to a child. When I came back, I saw that the (oxygen) concentrator had caught fire. I called the ward boy, who came with the fire extinguisher and tried to put it out. But by then, the fire had spread," James said.
Ten babies perished in a fire that broke out at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College in Jhansi Friday night.
Faced with an enormous blaze, James's mind worked with a frenetic speed, to the extent she cared little about burning herself.
"My chappal caught fire and I burned my foot. Then my salwar caught fire. I removed my salwar and discarded it. At that time, my mind was virtually not working," she told PTI Videos.
James just wore another salwar and went back to the rescue operation.
"There was a lot of smoke, and once the lights went out, we could not see anything. The entire staff brought out at least 14-15 children. There were 11 beds in the ward with 23-24 babies," she said.
Had the lights not gone out they could have saved more children, James said. "It all happened very suddenly. None of us had expected it."
Assistant Nursing Superintendent Nalini Sood praised James's valour and recounted bits from how the rescue operation was carried out.
"The hospital staff broke the glasses of the NICU ward to evacuate the babies. It was then Nurse Megha's salwar caught fire. Instead of caring for her safety, she stayed there to rescue the babies and handed them over to people outside," she said.
Sood said James is currently undergoing treatment at the same medical college. She said she did not know the extent of her burns.
"The rescued babies were shifted to a ward very close to the NICU ward… When I recall the scene, I feel like crying," she said.
Dr Anshul Jain, the head of the anaesthesiology department at the medical college, explained the standard rescue operation and claimed the hospital followed the protocol to the T.
"In the triage process during an ICU evacuation, the policy is to evacuate less-affected patients first. The rationale behind this approach is that patients requiring minimal support can be relocated quickly, enabling a larger number of evacuations to be completed in a shorter time.
"In contrast, patients on ventilators or requiring high oxygen support demand more time and resources for evacuation," he said.
"This principle was successfully implemented in Jhansi, playing a significant role in saving many lives," Jain said.
A newborn rescued from the fire died due to illness on Sunday, Jhansi District Magistrate Avinash Kumar said.
