Saharanpur (Uttar Pradesh), Apr 29 (IANS): The Yogi Adityanath government in Uttar Pradesh has suspended Dinesh Kumar Singh Mataolia, principal of Saharanpur's Shaikh-Ul Hind Maulana Mahmood Hasan Medical College, for laxity.

He has been replaced by Dr Arvind Trivedi of National Medical College, Meerut.

Around 40 cylinders with faulty nozzles were found lying unattended at the medical college at a time when the state is facing an acute oxygen shortage.

The medical college has in its possession 300 cylinders out of which 40 were in the state of disrepair.

According to the government spokesman, "There were allegations that despite strict directions from the government over smooth supply of oxygen to the hospital, it was found that valve of 40 cylinders out of 300 was not working, rendering them useless. During the inquiry, oxygen supply in-charge Nawab Singh and gas supplier company informed the district administration that they have been regularly reminding Dinesh Singh to get the valves repaired but he did not act on it."

It was also alleged that Dinesh Singh used to switch off his cell phone in the night, delaying decisions in urgent matters, said the spokesman, and adding that a probe found that there was not much coordination between the principal and different departments of the college.

The spokesman said, the RT-PCR test reports of around 5,000 cases were pending with the college laboratory despite the administration's strict order of ramping up tests.

Taking cognizance, the UP health department, in its order, observed, "The principal has been found to be of lackadaisical attitude not only in the repair of oxygen cylinders but also too much delay in the RT-PCR (Covid test) reports.

Investigations revealed that the results of at least 5,000 RT-PCR reports were lying incomplete as on April 20."

There are more than 3,000 active Covid cases in Saharanpur at the moment, and over 30,000 daily positive cases in the state.

The suspended principal could not be reached for comments.