Kolkata: Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday announced that the RT-PCR tests will now cost only Rs 950 at private laboratories which was earlier capped at Rs 1,250.
"We had earlier reduced the cost of testing in Bengal but we want to further reduce it so that the people can get tested more," said Banerjee at the state Secretariat.
Bengal has maintained a steady decline in the number of daily positive Covid cases since the past two weeks. On December 2, the state Health department said 42,624 samples were tested for the virus amongst which only 8.22 per cent were positive.
The discharge rate also went up to 93.33 per cent across the state.
Just last week, Banerjee virtually participated in a meeting which was chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to discuss the Covid vaccine and its implementation once available for people at large.
Banerjee stated that Bengal is ready to procure and distribute the vaccine to its citizens. In the meantime, the third phase of the vaccine trial has also kickstarted in Kolkata under NICED on Wednesday.