The Delhi government held a meeting on June 16 to discuss capping covid-19 treatment fees in the city charged by private hospitals and testing labs. (Representational image: IE)

Testing for covid-19 in the national capital gets cheaper! The Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia on Thursday, on his twitter handle, announced that the Delhi government has decided to cap the rates for Covid-19 RT-PCR test at Rs 2,400 inclusive of all charges.

Earlier, the price for a covid-19 test in the national capital was capped at Rs 4,500. There are 169 labs, both private and government, in the city those have permission to test samples for covid-19.

The Ministry of Home Affairs yesterday announced that the price of Covid-19 test in Delhi has been fixed at Rs 2,400 as suggested by a high-level committee set up by Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday, said a report by PTI. Now tests for covid-19 will be done via Rapid Antigen methodology, the report said.

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The decision will bring some respite to people in the city who were struggling to get covid-19 done due to high prices. There were reports in the social media recently showing private hospitals in the city charging up to Rs 25,000 per day for a single covid-19 bed in the general ward, Rs 30,000 for a private room and Rs 72,000 for a bed in the ICU with ventilator facility.

The Delhi government held a meeting on June 16 to discuss capping covid-19 treatment fees in the city charged by private hospitals and testing labs.

The national capital has become the second biggest covid-19 hotspot, after Mumbai, in the country. As of June 18, Delhi has reported 44,688 confirmed cases and 1,837 deaths related to coronavirus.

With the easing of lockdown from June 1, cases continue to rise in the city. Last week in a video conference, Sisodia had said Delhi is likely to see 100,000 positive coronavirus cases by June-end and over 5.5 lakh cases by July 31. He urged testing labs to ramp up capacity and asked hospitals to increase the number of Covid-19 beds to accommodate the rising number.

Delhi Chief Arvind Kejriwal recently said the city will need 80,000 covid beds by July-end as numbers are hitting new highs every day.