As Covid-19 cases surged past 4,100 in Odisha, opposition BJP and Congress on Tuesday accused the Naveen Patnaik government of scaling down testing for Covid-19.
BJP state general secretary Golak Mahapatra alleged that while chief minister Patnaik last month had announced conducting 15,000 tests daily in June, the number of tests have now gone below 3,000 over the last few weeks.
“On June 15, a total of 2,988 tests were conducted, on June 14 the number of tests were 2,499. The number of tests is going down over the weeks,” alleged Mohapatra. He also demanded that all inmates of quarantine centres across the state should undergo Covid-19 tests.
On the other hand, neighbouring Andhra Pradesh is testing 15,000 people daily and has so far tested five lakh people.
Congress MLA Suresh Kumar Routray also criticized the government for testing only two lakh people while over five lakh migrants have returned to the state. “From 5,000 tests a day in May, it is inexplicable how the number of tests came down drastically,” he said, alleging that the government has failed the migrants by not providing adequate testing facilities.
Reacting to Mahapatra’s charges, BJD spokesperson Dr Sasmit Patra said the BJP and Congress should not play politics in the times of pandemic. “Odisha is conducting Covid testing of all symptomatic persons as per the ICMR guidelines. Though testing capacity has been increased to 15,000 per day Odisha is carrying out the tests as per ICMR and Government of India guidelines. The same testing process is also being followed by BJP and Congress-ruled states across the country,” said Patra.
{{/usCountry}}Reacting to Mahapatra’s charges, BJD spokesperson Dr Sasmit Patra said the BJP and Congress should not play politics in the times of pandemic. “Odisha is conducting Covid testing of all symptomatic persons as per the ICMR guidelines. Though testing capacity has been increased to 15,000 per day Odisha is carrying out the tests as per ICMR and Government of India guidelines. The same testing process is also being followed by BJP and Congress-ruled states across the country,” said Patra.
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