Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai | Photo Credit: PTI

Patna: Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai on Friday announced that all BJP MPs will donate Rs 25 lakh each for their respective constituencies to build a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

It's not clear whether the MPs will donate out of their own pockets or will sanction money separately from their MP Local Area Development Fund (MPLADF) for the construction of PICUs.

This has come after as many as 172 children died due to encephalitis in the state with the majority of them at the Kejriwal Hospital and Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital in Muzaffarpur district.

Meanwhile, the announcement has raised further questions on the alliance of Janata Dal (United) and the BJP as no such announcement has come from the JD(U) despite the two being in power in the state as alliance partners.

Whatever may be the case, the announcement has too little and too less for the children who have lost their lives due to a disease that could have been prevented had the government been pro-active in dealing with the cases.

The state's public healthcare system is in such state that on Friday several videos were doing rounds on the internet where a primary health centre was being used as a cow shelter by the villages due to the lack of the staff. The videos were reported to be from Laxmipur village of Motihari district of the state.

On Thursday, several cases of encephalitis were reported from Samastipur, Banka and Vaishali. Reports suggest that three infants with AES symptoms were admitted to a hospital in Samastipur. One of the infants died while being shifted to SKMCH hospital.

Apart from these three districts, a case was also reported from neighbouring Ranchi. With the increasing number of cases every day, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh to families of the deceased, however, he has refused to comment on the matter.