Amid rising cases of COVID-19, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain on Saturday said that the Delhi government cannot flout ICMR guidelines that state certain conditions which are prerequisites for coronavirus tests.

"If you want the number of tests conducted for COVID-19 to increase, then ask ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) to change its guidelines. We cannot flout ICMR guidelines that state certain conditions which are prerequisites for tests," Jain told the media.

Meanwhile, on videos showing the bad state of affairs in LNJP hospital, Jain said, "Contract employees who made the video were motivated and did it on purpose. They have been suspended."

He further said, "Earlier this disease was more spread in America, Spain, Italy, and many countries, now it seems India has a turn."

Earlier this week, the Delhi Health Minister had hinted that community transmission was already occurring in the national capital as more than half the cases of infection could not be traced. "We call it community transmission when we cannot trace the source of the infection. In more than 50% of the cases in Delhi, the source of infection is not known."

The minister said that declaring the 'community transmission' phase can only be done by the central government authorities. "The Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Randeep Guleria, had himself said that there is community transmission in Delhi but the central government is not ready to accept it. Since it is a technical term, it depends on the Centre whether they accept it or not," said Satyendra Jain.

The coronavirus cases in India has crossed the three lakh-mark as it continues to witness close to 10,000 cases every day. The virus has spread rapidly and the country has marked significant and consecutive highest jumps in the COVID-19 tally over a major part of the past two weeks. India's COVID-19 count has hit a new high, crossing the 3.09 lakh-mark, while the death toll is nearing the 9,000-mark as well.

Maharashtra continues to be the epicenter of the coronavirus spread where the number of cases has witnessed an even large spike recently. According to the Health Ministry, Maharashtra has the highest number of cases with more than one lakh positive cases of infection and over 3,700 deaths. As many as 3,493 new COVID-19 cases were reported from the state in the past 24 hours.

Shopping malls, religious places, hotels, and restaurants have now been reopened in most states from earlier this week after more than two months of sustained lockdown. The current phase of re-opening, called 'Unlock 1', takes an economic focus. The government intends on being smart about implementing the lockdown in select places so that the economic activity of the country, as a whole, does not take any more hits.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had also released the standard operating procedure (SOPs) for malls, restaurants, and hotels as they opened these establishments under relaxed guidelines. But a lot of details were also left to the discretion of the states to finetune.

(With ANI inputs)