NEW DELHI: On Tuesday, the Supreme Court sought a response from the central government in a petition seeking instructions to cap the cost of RT-PCR testing to test suspected Covid-19 patients to Rs 400 across the country.
A bench of three high court judges, led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad Arvind Bobde, asked the Union of India (UOI) to submit its response to the petition submitted by attorney Ajay Agrawal.
The statement alleged that different fees are charged across the country, while the cost of the test is actually only Rs 200. It said that the cost of the RT-PCR test was set between Rs 900 to Rs 2,800 by various state governments. . Union Territories and NCT of Delhi.
The higher court also marked the matter with another case pending before the CJI tribunal and scheduled the matter for a further hearing on that matter.
“They (the hospitals) charge exorbitant money, my lords, please consider this. Around 135 million people (Health) are involved in this,” Agrawal argued in court.
The petition sought instructions to set the maximum rate for the RT-PCR (real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) test at Rs 400 uniformly across the country.
“There is a lot of loot from the labs and they are minting millions of rupees and millions of rupees. The profit margin is so high that it reaches 1,400 percent in Andhra Pradesh and 1,200 percent in Delhi.” said the plea.
“The matter is related to 135 million million citizens of the country, as they are all concerned about the coronavirus and are forced to be tested at this exorbitant price,” he added.
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