You are a District Magistrate of an area which has seen a huge surge in COVID-19 cases during the second wave of pandemic in India. The health infrastructure is already overburdened. (Hospitals) are overwhelmed, crematoriums and burial sites are regularly running out of space, and covid testing is struggling to meet the demand. Also, the vaccination drive is at the risk of going off-track due to supply mismatch. During this difficult time, you come to know that there are some people who are engaging in black marketing (hoarding and profiteering by using shady trick in the black market), ransom and swindle Covid-19 patients and their kin in the name of scarcity of drugs, oxygen and hospital beds. Black marketing, hoarding and profiteering are a classic case of market failure, which highlights the significance of (state intervention) in a crisis situation. How can state effectively play the role of a regulator as well as service provider in such a case of market failure?

Linked PYQ

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has quickly spread to various countries. As of May 8th, 2020, in India 56342 positive cases of corona had been reported. India with a population of more than 1.35 billion had difficulty in controlling the transmission of coronavirus among its population. Multiple strategies became necessary to handle this outbreak. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare of India raised awareness about this outbreak and to take all necessary actions to control the spread of COVID -19. Indian Government implemented a 55-day lockdown throughout the country to reduce the transmission of the virus. Schools and colleges had shifted to alternative modes of teaching-learning-evaluation and certification. Online mode became popular during these days. India was not prepared for a sudden onslaught of such a crisis due to limited infrastructure in terms of human resources, money and other facilities needed for taking care of this situation. This disease did not spare anybody irrespective of caste, creed, religion on one hand and ‘have and have not’ on the other. Deficiencies in hospital beds, oxygen cylinders, ambulances, hospital staff and crematorium were the most crucial aspects. You are a hospital administrator in a public hospital at the time when coronavirus had attacked a large number of people and patients were pouring into the hospital day in and day out. (a) What are your criteria and justification for putting your clinical and non-clinical staff to attend to the patients knowing fully well that it is a highly infectious disease and resources and infrastructure are limited? (b) If yours is a private hospital, whether your jurisdiction and decision would remain the same as that of a public hospital?