West Bengal Government Opposes Central Government Marked Red Zones

The West Bengal Government, on the 1st of May, opposed the red zone areas marked by the Central Government.

In the wake of the increasing number of the Novel Coronavirus cases, the Central Government marked 10 red zone areas for the spread of the virus.  However, the State Government refused the areas to be considered as red zones.

The West Bengal Health Ministry wrote a letter to the Central Government regarding the same.  The letter read, “Based on the current parameters of Government of India for categorisation of areas for COVID-19, the districts in the Red Zone are only four: Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur.”

However, the Union Health Ministry announced 10 districts to be red zones.  The 10 districts designated by the Union Ministry are South 24 Parganas, Paschim Medinipur, Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong, Malda, Howrah, Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur.

The West Bengal Health department deemed the new assessment “erroneous” and requested the ministry to issue another assessment announcing the aforementioned 4 districts to be red zones.

The Union Health Department responded upon the request and said, “Some states have raised issues on inclusion of certain districts in the red zone, I would like to highlight that this is a dynamic list.  The list will be revised on a weekly basis or earlier and communicated to states.”

The centre also added that while states may designate additional red or orange zones as appropriate, they cannot relax any classification that has been made by the Union Health Ministry.

Criticising the Mamata Banerjee led Trinamool Congress (TMC) Government, Rahul Sinha, the National Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party said, “The number of people positive in Bengal does not match the centre’s, nor the death toll. Now it seems there is a difference even in the number of districts that are red zones. Why is this? It seems the state is suppressing figures? If the state puts out the correct figures, then people will be alert. But to keep people in the dark and cut down red zones and increase green zones, the state is inviting a disaster. We say enough hide and seek. The state of the corona here is a pandemic. Stop this hide and seek. Cooperate with the centre.”

Recently, the Union Government alleged the TMC of hiding figures of the COVID-19 patients and asking the medical staff to not mention the cause of death in the deceased cases.  The issue was in light after the State witnessed a spike in death reports overnight from 18 to 57.

A leader of the BJP recently asked the West Bengal Government over the diplomatic death reports, by the State Government and Medical staff.  He said, “Is human death a mere statistic to you (Mamata Banerjee)? The day when you announced 18 deaths in West Bengal, your officers admitted in front of the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) sent by the central government that the real number was 57.”

The West Bengal Government is also alleged of not releasing COVID-19 bulletin, updating figures of infected patients and death cases due to the Coronavirus.

Amit Malbiya, the Chief of the BJP IT Cell said, “BJP IT cell chief Amit Malviya on Monday wrote on Twitter, “What is Mamata Banerjee hiding? No medical bulletin from the Bengal government on (the) 2nd, 3rd and 5th of April. Curiously the number of Covid related deaths missing in the bulletin released on 4th.. Read this along with Mamata admin’s diktat on a Committee deciding reason for COVID-19 deaths.”

According to the Union Health Ministry, West Bengal has 795 positive cases, 139 recovered cases and 33 deceased of the Coronavirus till date.