Kolkata, Apr 18 (PTI) On a day when the country witnessed a jump of around 90 per cent in daily COVID-19 cases, the scenario in Bengal continued to improve with only 17 new cases were detected in the last 24 hours, the health department said on Monday.

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The case load was now 20,17,823, it said.

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There were no deaths due to the disease and the toll remained at 21,200.

There were 38 recoveries pushing the number of such people to 19,96,333, the department said.

The discharge rate remained at 98.93 per cent.

The number of active cases accordingly improved to 290, it said.

Since Sunday, Bengal tested 5,682 samples taking the total number of such clinical examinations to 24,937,513, it added.

Meanwhile, the West Bengal Health Regulatory Commission on Monday directed hospitals to provide patients purified drinking water free of cost.

WBHRC chairman, Justice Asim Kumar Bandyopadhyay said that hospitals had been charging patients for drinking water even id they were in critical care unit or in a coma stage.

"From now on the price of water will not be taken. Money can be taken only if a patient wants mineral water from a particular company," he said.

The Commission also withdrew its old recommendation to all hospitals to maintain bed charges as per the rate it had fixed on March 1, 2020.

"Since everything is being restored to normalcy, hospital authorities can hike hike bed charges. But they will not be allowed to increase it more than once a year. And the charges should never more than 10 per cent," Justice Bandyopadhyay said.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)