West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday, 20 April, sought to know the rationale behind the formation of six Inter-Ministerial Central Teams (IMCTs) to assess the enforcement of lockdown norms in states.
She urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah to share criteria for the assessment, without which her government "would not be able to move ahead".
"We welcome all constructive support & suggestions, especially from the Central Govt in negating the #Covid19 crisis. However, the basis on which Centre is proposing to deploy IMCTs in select districts across India including few in WB under Disaster Mgmt Act 2005 is unclear (sic),” Banerjee tweeted.
"I urge both Hon'ble Prime Minister @NarendraModi Ji & Home Minister @AmitShah Ji to share the criterion used for this. Until then I am afraid, we would not be able to move ahead on this as without valid reasons this might not be consistent with the spirit of federalism," she added.
The Centre has constituted six IMCTs for on-spot assessment of the COVID-19 situation in Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and West Bengal.
Mamata also wrote a letter addressed to the Prime Minister, in which she said, “While I appreciate the pro-activeness shown by the central government in sending their teams to West Bengal, the same was done without prior information and is hence a breach of established protocol.”
She added that the central government team should have taken briefings from the state officers before they went on field visits.
"The IMCTs will focus on compliance and implementation of the lockdown measures as per guidelines, supply of essential commodities, social distancing, preparedness of health infrastructure, safety of health professionals and conditions of relief camps for labourers and poor people," a home ministry spokesperson said.
The Centre had recently flagged the "gradual dilution" of the lockdown norms in West Bengal.
Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha told NDTV at a press meet that the central teams landing up in West Bengal came as a surprise to them and that they were informed about it 15 minutes prior to their arrival. He added that the state was ‘behaving like they were hiding something.’
(With inputs from PTI)
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