West Bengal Principal Secretary (Health) Vivek Kumar has written to Union health secretary objecting to the criteria used by centre to earmark some districts as red zones.
Kolkata| The West Bengal government led by Mamata Banerjee has taken an objection over the list of red zones in the state, also referred to as Covid-19 hotspots, prepared by the central government. The state has also sent its own list to the centre claiming it reflects the “correct” classification of districts into Red, Orange, and Green Zones.
West Bengal Principal Secretary (Health) Vivek Kumar has written to Union health secretary objecting to the criteria used by centre to earmark some districts as red zones. The letter by Vivek Kumar also says that the presentation made by Cabinet Secretary to states on 30 April via video conference was “erroneous”.
“With regard to the presentation made in the Cabinet Secretary’s video conference with the states on April 30 at 3 pm, as many as 10 districts of West Bengal were shown in the Red Zone. This is an erroneous assessment. Based on the current parameters of the Government of India for categorisation of areas for Covid-19, the districts in the Red Zone (in West Bengal) are only four: Kolkata, Howrah, North-24 Paraganas and Purba Medinipur,” the letter read.
Along with the letter, Kumar has also attached a list of districts in West Bengal classifying them as Red, Orange, and Green zones.
The state government claimed that this list was the “correct classification” of the districts.
Earlier, the Union Health Ministry had prepared a list of 130 districts labelling them as red zones. Other than that, 284 districts were placed under the orange zone while 319 districts remained under the green zone.
According to the ministry, the criteria used for this classification was- the incidence of cases of Covid-19, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillance feedback.
The ministry has said that the states should follow this classification till 10 May i.e. 1 week after the end of the second phase of lockdown on 3 May. These lists, according to the ministry, are to help states in their containment operations.
The centre has said that the list will be revised on weekly basis or earlier. It will be communicated to states if there are changes in the list for the states to take further follow-up action.
Majority of metropolitan cities across the country such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad have been classified under red zones as per the new list by the ministry.
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