Kolkata: Bringing an end to all controversy over the death toll in Bengal due to COVID-19 and formation of an audit committee to certify the same, Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha on Friday stated that it was the Centre that had advised all the state governments to do "death audit" and to maintain the records. The Mamata Banerjee government took a proactive step and set up the "expert committee" to audit COVID-19 deaths on April 3 much ahead of the Union Home Secretarys letter to the state. It was also mentioned in the same letter that co-morbidity of a patient has to be looked into properly. This comes when the head of the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) Additional Secretary of Defence Ministry Apurva Chandra wrote to Sinha seeking a copy of the governments order constituting the audit committee and also wanted to know whether setting up of such "a committee is in line with ICMR guidelines or medical practice". Giving a detailed explanation based on the report of the audit committee, Sinha said till date the committee has examined 57 death cases and have found that "death of 18 persons were due to COVID-19 infections while the remaining 39 died due to severe co-morbid conditions, which were the immediate cause of death, and COVID-19 was the incidental finding". Out of 18, three have died in the past 24 hours. As many as 51 people tested positive in the past 24 hours taking the total positive cases in the state to 385. Due to the controversy over deaths being declared due to "co-morbidity conditions", allegations of suppressing the actual toll figure is often cropping up. In response, Sinha said: "The expert committee has clarified that the co-morbidities were cardiomyopathy with chronic kidney disease, renal failure, cerebrovascular-accident, acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, left ventricular failure in severe hypertension, multi-organ failure in type II diabetes and hypertension and red cell aplasia in a case of severe diabetes and hypertension." While reacting on letters being sent by the IMCT, Sinha said he has forwarded the letters to state Health Secretary Vivek Kumar to give a reply to the same as he is the competent authority in this regard. "Health department will give a reply if it is related to technical issues while Nabanna will respond if anything related to administration is asked by the Centre," Sinha said, adding that all sorts of information will be sent to them through e-mails. He also reiterated on Friday that there is no need for anyone to come to the state to procure such data. Stating that the state government has always cooperated with the Central team, the Chief Secretary maintained: "It is like an open book. One may visit wherever they like and they (Central teams) may also leave whenever they wish to." The Central team in South Bengal on Friday visited the quarantine centre at Dumurjola in Howrah and the team in North Bengal went to certain places. Highlighting that the state government is setting up more quarantine centres especially in Howrah, Kolkata and North 24-Parganas, Sinha stated that out of the 51 people who tested positive, 82 per cent are from these three districts, of which 51 per cent is from Howrah, 18 and 13 per cent are from Kolkata and North 24-Parganas respectively. Till date, 8933 tests have been carried out, including 943 tests being undertaken in the past 24 hours. The Chief Secretary also stated that the state can fight COVID-19 in a better way if the Centre clears the due amount of Rs 50,000 crore and distribution of rice under a particular scheme cannot be started as the state has received only 40 per cent of the total requirement. In a bid to impose proper lockdown, the police have so far arrested 33,997 people and seized 3,556 vehicles while 3,749 FIRs have been lodged.

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