Home Ministry’s ‘Unified NCR’ helps control Covid; Delhi moves out of watch lists

New Delhi: The home ministry’s ‘unified NCR’ approach for fighting Covid-19 seems to be paying off with Delhi, for perhaps the first time, not figuring in the danger zone of any of the key coronavirus watch lists.

In the week June 27-July 3, not one of Delhi’s 11 districts was among the top 15 in the list of districts registering a positivity rate of above 20%. The only district in Delhi’s vicinity on the list is Faridabad with a 23.9% positive rate as on July 3.

Delhi’s positive rate is now 13.6%, still a notch above the 9.1% national average. Almost all of Delhi’s districts have been among the top 15 districts of the country with a worryingly high positivity rate for several weeks now, even surpassing hotspot Mumbai last month.

Making impact
Much of the change is being attributed to the shift in political approach after Union home minister Amit Shah brought the warring chief ministers of the states that make up the NCR to integrate efforts. The Centre stepped in with additional resources and support directly monitored by Shah.

Under the unified NCR strategy, a massive ramp-up of beds, ease in testing rules, clearer home isolation proctocols and a rationalization of hospitalisation costs was carried out.


As a result, on testing front too, no Delhi district is there among the list of top eight with very low tests per 10 lakh population as on July 3. Mumbai suburban leads this tally, followed by Nashik and Jalgaon of Maharashtra.

Delhi has, in fact, significantly increased testing. Of the 27.5 lakh antigen testing kits ordered in the country, as many as 11 lakh orders are from Delhi.

The turnaround
The situation on June 15 was quite different in Delhi. Seven of its districts had more than 40% positive rate. Shahdara stood at an all-time high of 60.7%. The national capital led the tally of 25 districts with a positive rate above 20%.

By June 14, the situation in the capital and its adjoining areas had become worrisome enough for Shah to step in himself. After a slew of meetings with state government officials and municipal authorities, it was decided to set up a panel under Niti Aayog’s V K Paul to draw up a Delhi plan and visit a capital hospital for a ground check.
Follow-up steps
Delhi made its first leap as antigen-based testing was given a big push. From an average of about 2,600-2,900 tests per day and a total of 2.9 lakh total tests conducted in Delhi between April 1- Jun 14, the numbers rose to 16,000-20,000 per day between June 15 and 30, taking overall tally in the fortnight to 2.41 lakh.

The door-to-door serological survey was scaled up with 755 volunteers and 28 NGOs pitching in.

Next big worry: Hospital beds.
A firm push resulted in sharp increase from 9,937 beds as on June 14 to 30,000 beds in Delhi today made possible after the home ministry got ITBP to have a 10,000-bed facility up at Radha Soami ashram, got 8,000 beds in 500-plus railways coaches and freed up 1,000 beds in facilities run by defence forces.
Nearly 500 oxygen cylinders, 440 ventilators, 10,000 oximeters were supplied by the Centre while Delhi was asked to double its ambulance service to ensure timely hospital care to those in need.