Kolkata (The Hawk): According to Union Minister of State for Health & Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar, West Bengal is the only state that doesn't provide the Union government with any information or statistics regarding dengue.
"On this count, all states had sent comments to the Union Health Ministry portal, with the exception of West Bengal. The West Bengal administration has refused to provide information on the number of dengue cases or even the number of deaths associated with the disease despite repeated requests. The state government should provide the Union government with the statistics, "At the 16th Asian Conference on Diarrheal Diseases and Nutrition, the minister addressed the media.
The state government should share information with the federal government, according to Minister Pawar, who is charged with advising and assisting all state governments in the nation in their efforts to manage vector-borne diseases. She also impliedly warned the West Bengal government that without adequate information and data exchange, the Union government would be unable to provide any more assistance.
The West Bengal government refused to implement the Ayushman Bharat Scheme in 2019 on the grounds that it had already launched a similar health programme, Swastha Sathi, on this subject in 2016. The Union minister stated at the time that the West Bengal government should implement the Ayushman Bharat Scheme.
Sovandeb Chattopadhyay, the state's minister of agriculture and parliamentary affairs, asserted that sharing dengue statistics with the federal government is not required of the state government. "We will without a doubt provide the information to the Union authorities if they ask. However, the state government is not required to voluntarily disclose that information with the Union government "added he.
S. Niyogy, director of health services for West Bengal, claimed that the state government's data sharing on this count is being posted slowly because of technical issues with the relevant portal.
(Inputs from Agencies)
