The submission was made before a division bench comprising Justice Vineet Kothari and Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana on a plea that sought the creation of a committee to conduct tests on homeless people, and establish mobile testing booths in every district.

The bench closed the plea after holding that the central and State governments have been taking all necessary steps to test more people day by day.

The bench also closed another plea moved by V Ponraj, former personal assistant of late President APJ Abdul Kalam, to utilise the equipment and machines available in the various institutions for carrying out testing after the government submitted that Tamil Nadu has the highest number of testing laboratories (53) for RT-PCR tests to detect COVID 19 cases, and has so far tested maximum number of samples (2.43 lakh) in India.

“We are satisfied that the State is aware of the equipment available for carrying out such tests in various institutions within the territory of Tamil Nadu and have already issued necessary directions and made arrangements for making available such units for carrying out such tests.”

The bench recorded the submissions made by Health Secretary Beela Rajesh through a status report which said that apart from RT-PCR machines available in the government medical college hospitals and ICMR PCR labs, the State government has diverted the machines available in the other departments/higher education institutions, too.

The Higher Education Department has diverted 17 RT-PCR units from various universities in the State while the Agricultural Department had directed National Research Centre for Banana, Tiruchy; Indian Institute of Food Processing, Thanjavur; and Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore, to divert RT-PCR to Health Department for this purpose.

There are 53 laboratories (government-37, private - 16) functioning in the State now, the Health Secretary said, noting that Tamil Nadu has the highest number of testing laboratories.