On their final day in the state, the Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) wrote to West Bengal Chief Secretary stating that there needs to be “transparency and consistency” in reporting figures related to the Coronavirus pandemic and advised not to “play down” the spread of virus.

IMCT leader Apurva Chandra, in the letter, also lamented the Mamata Banerjee-led government’s “antagonistic view” to the COVID-19 monitoring team.

The letter, according to ANI, also mentioned the “limited field visits” and interactions with health and other officials arranged by the state government.

The IMCT noted that a discrepancy has been brought out in the number of Coronavirus cases reported by the state in its medical bulletins and its communications with the Central government.

“The bulletin of 30/04/2020 showed active COVID cases as 572, discharged after treatment 139 and expired as 33 making a total of 744. In a communication to the Union Secretary (Health & Family Welfare) from the Principal Secretary (Health) on the same day the total number of cases was indicated to be 931 leading to a discrepancy of 187 cases,” the letter read.

“In addition, it was admitted on 30/04/2020 that 72 COVID patients have expired but classified as death due to co-morbidities,” it added.

Chandra further noted that while the state government has claimed very high level of daily surveillance of individuals in containment zones, no database was shown or results made available.

He said that during the stay of the committee itself, over 50 lakh persons would have been surveyed in the four districts, and called for very robust systems for collating and evaluating a database of this magnitude.

Chandra, in his final observations, also wrote that West Bengal has the highest mortality rate in the country at 12.8 percent.

“This extremely high mortality rate is a clear indication of low testing, weak surveillance and tracking,” he said.

The COVID-19 monitoring team, led by Apurva Chandra, returned to the national capital after having completed two weeks of stay in the city.

The Centre had on April 20 deputed two IMCTs for West Bengal to make on-spot assessment of situation and issue necessary directions to state authorities for its redressal and submit their report to central government in larger interest of general public.

The Centre’s decision to send the team has triggered a big row, with the Trinamool Congress government of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee questioning the need for such a delegation.

Mamata had shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, describing the Centre’s decision as “unilateral”, and alleging it was sent without prior intimation, causing “breach of established protocol”.

She also dubbed the Union government’s selection of districts with ‘serious’ COVID-19 situation as a “figment of imagination”.

The teams, which have been deputed to Jalpaiguri and Kolkata in West Bengal, had last month complained of not getting cooperation from the state government and the local administration. They drove through various parts of the city only late in the afternoon following a strongly-worded letter from the Centre to the state after the teams were made to stay put at a Border Security Force (BSF) facility since morning.

West Bengal has come under fire for not following lockdown guidelines issued by Central government to curb the spread of novel Coronavirus and deciding on the deaths related to the infection.

The central team to north Bengal had earlier suggested stricter implementation of lockdown there. In a letter to Sinha, the central team in north Bengal, led by Vineet Joshi, said more field officers are required to monitor and provide feedback about the effectiveness of various measures undertaken by the government.