patna a division bench of patna high court on thursday sought a reply from the state government on steps taken by it to tackle the likely third wave of covid pandemic it also asked the state government to present a report on districtwise medical infrastructurethe bench comprising chief justice sanjay karol and justice s kumar while hearing the petitions filed by shivani kaushik gaurav kumar singh and others also asked the state government to provide details about the current status of vaccination against covid19 and number of active casesthe court has asked chief secretary to file a counter affidavit on all the issues in the next hearing which has been scheduled for july 26 along with the counter affidavit giving complete information about the esic hospitalbihta which was converted into a coviddedicated hospitalthe dean of esicbihta and the state government were supposed to present the complete information about sanctioned strength of beds manpower doctors nurse ward boy and security personnel medical equipment and other infrastructure of the hospital however they failed to provide their counter affidavits during the hearing on thursday due to which the hearing on the matter was adjourned till next mondaythe counsel of the petitioner nikhil singh said the state government has to reply on daily cases of covid19 and status of medical infrastructure in districts the state government failed to submit counteraffidavit on thursday so the court has asked them to submit it by monday the court has also said the state government should have informed it earlier rather than wasting the courts time singh addedas per sources against 247 sanctioned posts of nursing at esic hospital only 56 are filled similarly there are 21 and 118 sanctioned posts of ward boys and housekeeping staff of which only nine and 50 respectively have been filledthe court also heard the petition to increase the honorarium of doctors reinstated on contract in the state after hearing the matter the court directed the principal secretary of health department to take a decision on representation filed by the doctors on contract