The Centre on Wednesday slammed West Bengal's response to COVID-19, saying the low rate of testing and high mortality rate in the state was reflective of poor surveillance.
In a strongly worded letter to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said the mortality rate of 13.2% among patients in West Bengal was by far the highest in the country.
Bhalla state that not only were lockdown measures being violated in Kolkata and Howrah by “specific groups in specific localities” but there have also been reports of “corona warriors”, including police, being attacked in such localities.
The Mamata Banerjee government and the Centre are on a collision path over the handling of the pandemic. Central teams were sent to seven districts in the state to report on the ground situation. The Centre accused the state of not reporting virus cases and deaths properly.
Bhalla also flagged instances of lockdown violations in the state such as large crowds in market places, people moving around without masks, bathing in rivers, etc. He said those were examples of “poor supervision and implementation of crowd control measures” by the district authorities.