MHA refutes Delhi govt's allegations of not allowing to increase per day COVID testing limit

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Thursday strongly refuted allegations levelled by the Delhi government who had claimed that the Union Home Ministry is not allowing them to increase per day COVID-19 testing limit.

In a series of tweets, MHA said, "The allegation raised in the letter of the Health Minister of Delhi Govt dated August 27, 2020, which is addressed to Union Home Secretary, to the effect that MHA is putting pressure on Delhi Govt officers not to increase testing in Delhi is false and baseless."

"In this context, it may be recalled that it was after the intervention of the Union Home Minister that the daily tests in Delhi, which were averaging around 4,000 per day till mid June, 2020, have gone up to around 18-20,000 per day in a calibrated manner," MHA briefed in detail in another tweet.

MHA asserted that the coronavirus crisis in Delhi has improved due to the enhanced testing following the intervention of the Home Minister Amit Shah.

"The marked improvement in the COVID-19 situation in Delhi has been possible due to this enhanced testing and other containment measures. The letter of the Delhi Health Minister has annexed a note of the officers of the Delhi Govt. It may be noted that this note has made no mention whatsoever of any instruction of MHA on the matter of increase in testing in Delhi," MHA said further, via tweets.

Union Home Ministry has said that the note has only proposed that the views of an Expert Committee headed by Dr VK Paul may be taken on the proposed enhancement of testing in Delhi, for technical guidance on various issues such as a mix of RT-PCR and Rapid Antigen, categories of geographical areas and demographics etc.

"As such, any allegation that MHA is putting pressure on Delhi Government for not to increase testing in Delhi is absolute without any basis," MHA added.

Earlier, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain had alleged that MHA was putting pressure on the Delhi government officers not to increase the per day COVID testing limit.

( With inputs from ANI )