The central government will be conducting a telephonic survey by calling up citizens on their mobile phones across the country, to enable proper feedback on the response regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, which is spreading like wildfire across India.

The survey will be carried out by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), an announcement by the Department of Telecommunications under the Government of India stated on Wednesday.

The calls will be coming to the mobile phones of the citizens from the number '1921', it was informed.

"People are informed that it is a genuine survey and are requested to participate in a good measure when a call comes in from 1921 to enable proper feedback of the prevalence and distribution of the COVID symptoms," the announcement detailed.

The announcement also warned citizens to be aware of any other calls by pranksters in the guise of a similar survey and asked them not to divulge any personal information if the call comes from any other number.

Meanwhile, the total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection in India crossed the 20,000-mark on Wednesday while the death toll had crossed 600 last night.

The Centre on Tuesday added four more districts to the list from where no coronavirus case has been reported in the last 14 despite having a positive case earlier, taking the total number to 61.

Latur, Osmanabad, Hingoli, and Washim from Maharashtra have not reported any new COVID-19 case in the last 14 days, Luv Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, said during the daily briefing. 

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has advised states to not perform tests via the Rapid Testing Kits in the coming two days. A variation of 6% - 71% detection rate has been found among positive samples of RT-PCR. Therefore, the ICMR will be sending teams to the field in the coming 2 days, where they will perform the test and identify problematic batches to validate the kits from different lots.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on April 14 announced an extension of nationwide lockdown till May 3 to battle the novel coronavirus. Wednesday marks Day 8 of the extended COVID-19 Lockdown 2.0.