West Bengal replaces health secretary amid row over COVID-19 crisis

Kolkata, May 12 () 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 claim the removal only proves "something was seriously wrong".

Narayan Swaroop Nigam, who was the Transport Secretary, has replaced Kumar, according to the government notification.

Kumar's transfer to the environment department as secretary comes days after a war of words broke out between the state and 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 state government over its COVID-19 management which it said is characterised by a very low rate of testing in proportion to the population, and a very high rate of mortality of 13.2 per cent for the state, by far the highest for any state.

According to sources, the constitution of the death audit committee on April 3 was the idea of Kumar which was in the eye of a political storm, with opposition parties calling it a government's tool to "fudge" COVID-19 data related to the number of coronavirus deaths and infections.

In the wake of criticism, in 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 set up the audit paneland that she had nothing to do with it.

On May 2, the state government altered the audit committees mandate and said henceforth the body will not certify whether a patient died due to coronavirus or a pre-existing ailment.

West Bengal has so 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 these, 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 the state government is now trying to clean the mess by using scapegoats.

"All the decisions 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 committee member Sujan Chakraborty said the decision should have been taken much earlier and wondered whether it would serve any purpose as long as the state government doesn't change its COVID-19 response policy.