India’s West Bengal state has disallowed the visit of an inter-Ministerial team to the state, forcing the federal Home Ministry to invoke the Disaster Management Act and a recent ruling of the country's apex court. The Supreme Court of India asked state governments to faithfully comply with directives and orders issued by the federal government in letter and spirit, in the interest of public safety.
The federal Home Secretary, Ajay Bhalla, in a letter to the top bureaucrat in West Bengal, said that the members of the federal team “have not been provided with the requisite cooperation by the State and local authorities. In fact, they have been specifically restrained from making any visits, interacting with health professionals and assessing the ground level situation.”
Bhalla directed the state to comply with the order of the federal Home Ministry and make arrangements for the inter-Ministerial team to carry out its responsibilities.
West Bengal chief Mamata Banerjee has, according to reports, been on a collision course with the federal government, having written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, 20 April, that “such unilateral action on the part of the central government is not desirable at all.”
West Bengal’s ruling Trinamool Congress lawmaker, Derek O’Brien, stated that “Anybody who wants to come to Bengal to help the people and to further improve whatever we’ve already done is welcome. But it has to be done through a process. If you don’t follow it, you make things difficult for yourself.”
Anybody who wants to come to Bengal to help the people&to further improve whatever we've already done is welcome. But it has to be done through a process. If you don't follow it,you make things difficult for yourself:Derek O'Brien,TMC on 2 IMCT teams sent by centre to West Bengal pic.twitter.com/ZxDLeMjETG
— ANI (@ANI) April 21, 2020
The federal government detailed six teams, two each for West Bengal and Maharashtra, as well as one each for Indore in Madhya Pradesh and Jaipur in Rajasthan. The teams were mandated to assess the implementation of lockdown guidelines, the supply of essential commodities, social distancing, preparedness in the health infrastructure, the safety of health professionals and the conditions of relief camps for workers and the poor.
The formation of the teams followed reports of large-scale violations of lockdown guidelines in several states, including West Bengal, as the country entered the fourth week and the federal government announced a graded relaxation plan beginning Monday, 20 April.
Ever since India detected the first case of the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus on 30 January, the caseload has rapidly mounted across the country and, as of Tuesday, there were 18,985 active cases, while 3,259 patients were treated and discharged from hospitals and at least 603 people had lost their lives to the infection, according to federal health and family welfare ministries.
