Amid raging controversy over alleged mishandling of the COVID-19 crisis, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday cracked the whip on Health Secretary Vivek Kumar by transferring him from the post, prompting the opposition to say the removal only proves “something was seriously wrong”.
Narayan Swaroop Nigam, who was the Transport Secretary, has replaced Kumar, consistent with the govt notification.
Kumar’s transfer to the environment department as secretary comes days after a war of words broke out between the state and therefore the central governments over the “dismal performance” of West Bengal in tackling the COVID-19 crisis.
The Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCT) which had visited Bengal for on-the-spot assessment of the COVID-19 situation had expressed their disappointment with the functioning of the health department headed by Kumar, who was appointed last December, replacing Sanghamitra Ghosh.
The Centre had recently rapped the government over its COVID-19 management which it said is characterised by a really low rate of testing in proportion to the population, and a really high rate of mortality of 13.2 per cent for the state, far and away the very best for any state.
According to sources, the constitution of the death audit committee on April 3 was the thought of Kumar which was within the eye of a political storm, with opposition parties calling it a government’s tool to “fudge” COVID-19 data associated with the amount of coronavirus deaths and infections.
In the wake of criticism, within the last week of April, the state administration tried to distance itself from the audit committee, when Banerjee, who also holds the health portfolio, said the health department decided to line up the audit panel
and that she had nothing to try to with it.
On May 2, the government altered the audit committees mandate and said henceforth the body won’t certify whether a patient died thanks to coronavirus or a pre-existing ailment.
West Bengal has thus far reported 190 COVID-19 deaths, out of which the state has attributed 72 deaths to co-morbidities — cases where COVID-19 was incidental.
The state has also reported 1,939 COVID-19 cases and of those , 1,374 are active.
The BJP claimed the removal of the health secretary proves that there was “something seriously wrong with the state”s handling of the pandemic”.
“Earlier when questions were raised over the PDS system, the state had removed its food secretary, now when questions are being raised over the handling of the COVID-19 crisis, the health secretary has been shunted. This proves that the allegations were correct and therefore the government is now trying to wash the mess by using scapegoats.
“All the choices are taken after a nod by the chief minister, then how can she deny her responsibility?” West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh asked.
On April 16, state Food secretary Manoj Agarwal was removed.
CPI (M) central member Sujan Chakraborty said the choice should are taken much earlier and wondered whether it might serve any purpose as long because the government doesn”t change its COVID-19 response policy.