MHA refutes Delhi Health Min's claim of pressure on officers to not increase COVID testing

On Thursday, the Ministry of Home Affairs dismissed the Delhi Health Minister’s allegation that there is pressure on government officers to not increase the COVID-19 testing in the national capital. This comes amid Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal’s order that the daily testing should be doubled from 20,000 to 40,000 tests within a week’s time. The MHA recalled that the daily tests averaging around 4000 till mid-June have gone up to 20,000 per day only after the intervention of Union Home Minister Amit Shah. 

Highlighting that the COVID-19 situation in Delhi has improved due to enhanced testing and other containment measures, the MHA also commented on a note of Delhi government officers annexed by Satyendar Jain. The Ministry clarified that this note had no mention of any instruction from the MHA pertaining to the testing level in the national capital. According to the MHA, the note only proposed that the views of the Expert Committee headed by Dr. VK Paul should be taken into consideration while enhancing the testing. At present, there are 12,520 active cases in Delhi while 1,48,897 patients have been discharged and 4,347 fatalities have been reported. 

Read: Delhi High Court's 5 Benches To Hold Physical Hearings On Rotational Basis From Sept 1

Jain alleges Centre's interference

Writing to Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla earlier in the day, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain alleged that some officers had told about pressure from the Home Ministry to not increase the novel coronavirus testing as proposed by Kejriwal. He stressed that the democratically elected AAP government had the full authority to take all decisions. Questioning the rationale of the MHA to curb the testing within the ambits of Delhi, he pointed out that ramping up testing has been considered a good strategy across the world. Thereafter, he urged the Centre not to interfere with the Delhi government's decision to increase COVID-19 testing. 

Read: COVID-19: Steady Rise In No. Of Active Cases In Delhi Since Aug 5, Barring Three Days

COVID-19 crisis in India

At present, there are 33,10,234 confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India out of which 25,23,771 patients have been discharged while 60,472 deaths have been reported. With 56,013 COVID-19 patients getting cured in the last 24 hours, the country's recovery rate stands at 76.24%. Meanwhile, the case fatality rate has dipped to 1.83%. After 9,24,998 tests were conducted in the last 24 hours, the number of tests done in India has increased to 3,85,76,510. The number of COVID-19 testing labs rose to 1550 including 993 labs in the government sector and 557 private labs. 

Read: COVID-19 An 'Act Of God', Economy To Contract This Fiscal: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman