West Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha on Monday said that the Central government teams — who are in Bengal to check the COVID-19 situation — won\u2019t be allowed to visit different areas across the state without briefing the state government about the reasons they chose to come here. He said they should convince him that there were enough reasons for them to check the ground situation.<\/p>\n
Sinha said that the state government was not informed prior to the teams\u2019 visit and the members had arrived in the state within 15 minutes after he was informed.<\/p>\n
The Home Ministry, in an order issued on Sunday, mentioned that the situation with respect to COVID-19 is \u201cespecially serious\u201d in certain parts of Bengal like Kolkata, Howrah, East Midnapore, North 24 Parganas, Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Jalpaiguri and two teams would be sent to these areas to assess the situation. The teams will \u201cmake an on the spot assessment of the situation, issue necessary directions to the state authorities\u201d and submit their report to the Central government.<\/p>\n
The chief secretary said that the team members had started visiting certain areas without taking any briefing from the state government and had taken the help of Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Border Security Force (BSF) \u2013 Central paramilitary forces \u2013 to move into the areas. \u201cIn this, they have flouted the order issued by the Centre,\u201d Sinha said. The order mentioned that the Central teams will take the support of the state government in moving around the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very clear that \u2018health\u2019 is a state subject but the current situation is of concern nationally. It is not that if the Centre asks us to follow something, we won\u2019t do it. But the way teams have been sent and they have not informed us on time, and are going around with help of Central forces, it appears that we are trying to hide something,\u201d the chief secretary said.<\/p>\n
He added that the team in south Bengal had been asked to meet him and take the briefing of the situation and the one in north Bengal had been asked to talk to him over phone. \u201cIf after that, they feel the need to go to some areas, they can. But unless we are convinced there are enough reasons, we will not let them go around different areas,\u201d Sinha said.<\/p>\n
He added that it was not clear to the state government how the Centre had selected the districts where the teams would visit. Mentioning Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, Kalimpong and East Midnapore, he said that it had been several days since COVID-19 cases had been reported from these areas.<\/p>\n
The Central team called on the chief secretary in the evening at the state administrative headquarters, Nabanna.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The teams were taking the help of Central forces, he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":279,"featured_media":9247,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[246,346,371],"adace-sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-9275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nation","tag-coronavirus-in-india","tag-coronavirus-in-kolkata","tag-lockdown-in-india"],"yoast_head":"\n