West Bengal, April 20: The West Bengal Department of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday alleged that defective test kits have been supplied by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) for testing delays. In a series of tweets, the state health department said the faulty kits are forcing officials to opt for repeat/ ‘confirmatory’ test run, thereby causing a delay in the generation of the final test report.

The Health Department in the state further stated that there was no problem earlier when the testing kits were being received directly from the National Institute of Virology, Pune. However, recently the supplies to Government Labs in West Bengal have been routed through ICMR-NICED, Kolkata. Mamata Banerjee Requests PM Narendra Modi to Release Rs 25,000 Crores For West Bengal, Cites 'Coronavirus Impact' on State's Finance.

Below are the tweets by West Bengal Department of Health and Family Welfare: 

On the other hand, a major row has erupted in West Bengal, with many in the medical fraternity and opposition parties claiming the state is reporting fewer cases as only a minuscule proportion of the population is getting tested for the inscrutable enemy. The National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED), ICMR's nodal COVID-19 testing facility in Kolkata, had recently said the state government is not sending enough samples for tests.

The tweets have raised eyebrows because of a reference to "mischievous reports in social media about the alleged delay in the time taken for testing swab samples" in the state.

Here's the tweet with reference to the above matter: 

West Bengal has reported 310 cases of COVID-19 so far and 12 deaths, the Health Ministry's data shows. Earlier this month, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and requested him to sanction Rs 25,000 crores for the state which the later had promised. She even mentioned the said amount is still due from the Government of India side.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Apr 20, 2020 08:56 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).