Name and shame states not doing enough testing for coronavirus, says Kant

Pointing out that Telangana and Bihar, among some other states, were just not doing enough testing to detect coronavirus positive cases, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Monday said that these states needed to be named and shamed.

“Why are states like Telangana, Bihar just not doing enough testing and not putting out data. Consequences of this will be seen in two-three months. All these states, which are not doing testing, need to be shamed,” Kant said during an event organized by the India Policy Forum.

He said states and districts should be ranked not in terms of absolute number of Covid-19 cases, but in terms of testing.

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“Name and shame the states which are not doing testing. This is the only way you get results in India. Without that you will not,” he cautioned.

“This data on testing should be put in the public domain and then should be subject to a lot of analysis. And you will see the results coming,” he said.

Kant said there was no other solution to contain the pandemic other than testing. “Testing is really the key. This would require partnership with the private sector as the battle (against coronavirus) cannot be won by the government alone,” he said.