The Maharastra government is carrying out a large-scale data reconciliation exercise to remove glitches in the State’s COVID-19 figures. Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta, while admitting to “discrepancies” in the manual loading of data to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) website, said there was no deliberate suppression of figures.
Mr. Mehta said on Monday that in several cases, the cause of death may have been shown as COVID-19, while the actual reason may have been cardiac arrest or renal failure.
“There is no question of suppression of facts and figures, even as there are political allegations we [State government] have buried data. We will probe any instance where the mismatch has been deliberate. However, mostly these have been inadvertent errors, if any, during the manual phase of data uploading,” Mr. Mehta told The Hindu.
The State government is likely to release the final tally of the corrected figures on Tuesday, he said.
The State government had first started testing and screening for COVID-19 cases in January. The very first case in Maharashtra was detected on March 9, and while the testing facilities were limited to two labs at the time, currently 98 laboratories are conducting RtPCR tests to detect the virus.
In the earlier phase of data collection, laboratories were informing swab results over email or phone to the Public Health Department, followed by a hard copy.
Subsequently, the Union Ministry of Health provided direct access to ICMR portal, to which all ICMR-approved laboratories are entering data in real time, Pradeep Vyas, principal secretary (health), said. In a letter to all district and municipal bodies, he wrote, “Now Chief Secretary has directed a data reconciliation drive be completed at the earliest by June 15. In this, each district and municipal corporation should inform number of cases discharged, number of COVID-19 deaths and active cases, until midnight of June 6. Any data mismatch brought to notice after this would be viewed very seriously.”
The exercise is also necessary, officials said, to know the exact load of active cases and for better planning to utilise the health infrastructure. Government offices have also been asked to carry out data cleaning of all records directly sent to districts collectors and municipal commissioners.
The opposition parties have alleged the government’s COVID-19 data collection has been poor. “I visited my constituency ward office today to demand data on patients admitted and funds the government may have used on quarantine facilities and treatment. But in 80% of these cases, the local ward could not provide me any data,” said former BJP minister and suburban legislator Yogesh Sagar.
Mr. Mehta said the final report would be compiled in the next two to three days and all mismatches and “discrepancies” would be addressed immediately. “There is no confusion from our end. We are just reconciling data by cleaning it from how it was stored manually earlier.”