Central teams accuse WB govt of non-cooperation

Kolkata: Alleging non-cooperation by the West Bengal government, two central teams visiting the state to assess the COVID-19 situation on Saturday took umbrage at a top bureaucrat’s remark that officials cannot waste time by accompanying them and wondered whether the ruling dispensation would take responsibility of their members’ safety.
In a fresh set of letters to Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha, the two teams which are in Kolkata and in Siliguri in North Bengal flagged several instances of non-cooperation regarding providing logistical support and other relevant information.
The inter-ministerial central team, led by senior bureaucrat Apurba Chandra, said it is yet to receive a response from the state government to the letters it has written to Sinha since its arrival in the city on Monday.
Chandra also sought details about testing, quarantine and contact tracing of the Tablighi Jamaat meet returnees from Delhi’s Nizamuddin area, based on the data provided by the Union government.
“Four letters have been written to the state government till today. No response has been received till date… The chief secretary of West Bengal has been widely reported in the media to have stated that the IMCT is free to visit anywhere, and the state government cannot waste its time by accompanying them. (PTI)