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Kolkata,04 May(HS): Expressing their strong reservations about the overall Covid-19 situation in West Bengal and squarely blaming the local government for its abysmal failure to contain the killer disease in the state despite repeated cautioning, both the Central teams charged the authorities with suppressing facts about the toll.
In a strongly worded letter, addressed to the Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, with a copy to Union Home Secretary Ajoy Bhalla, the leader of the Central teams Aruba Chanda, Special Secretary in the ministry of Defence cited the total non-cooperation of the state government to both the Central teams in getting the first-hand view of the ground situation about the extent of Coronavirus in the state from the beginning and raised questions about the huge discrepancy between the figures of Covid-19 death toll as well as the number of those affected by the disease with the figures released by the Union Health Ministry.
In his parting letter before leaving the state, Chanda said how come when the Indian Council of Medical Research(ICMR) and the Union Health Ministry had stated that altogether 931 people were affected by the disease as on 01 April while the state government claimed that only 572 people were affected.
The fate of nearly 190 people who tested positive is not disclosed till now, Chanda stated and blamed the government for allegedly trying to supress the actual figures for reasons only known to them.
Also coming down heavily on the alleged disapproval and dismay among a section of top government officials and the Ministers for the government order to bring 6 more districts under the Red Zone from 30 April to take their total number to 10 from four earlier, the Central team leader said despite strict restrictions on their free movement in both South and North Bengal, they had visited on their own a number of places in different districts and found how bad the situation almost everywhere where no proper step was taken to implement the lockdown norms strictly.
People were allowed to assemble in large numbers and the police did very little to take immediate and proper steps to implement the lockdown properly, he alleged.
Underlining the unexpectedly low number of testing in the state, Chanda once again drew the attention of the Chief Secretary in his letter and claimed that it was one of the prime reasons for the steady growth in the the number of asymptomic cases of Coronavirus in Bengal.
However, following our repeated concern now the number of daily testing has now been increased from 300-400 to around 1,900 now which was a good sign, Chanda said in his letter.
Meanwhile, the Centre has decided to send one more Central Health team to West Bengal to advise the government on how to successfully contain the spread of Coronavirus and take immediate preventive measures.
Under this circumstances, now it remains to be seen how the Centre would react to such strong observations of the Central teams in Bengal.
