The Madras High Court on Mondayissued notice to the Centre and Tamil Nadu government on a PIL by a former scientific advisor to late A P J Abdul Kalam which said the number of COVID-19 tests can be ramped up to 3.76 lakh per day if all PCR labs in educational institutions and research institutions are roped in.The public interest litigation petition filed by scientist V Ponraj, associated with former president Kalam for 20 years, sought a direction to the Centre and the state government to submit an action plan to ramp up the testing for coronavirus.The petitioner sought report on the number of RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) testing equipment available in labs in the universities and other research institutions in the country.When the PIL came up for hearing before a division bench of Justices Vineet Kothari and Pushpa Sathyanarayana through video conference, the court issued notice to the Union and state governments directing them to file counter affidavits by and posted the matter for further hearing to May 12.The petitioner submitted that at present only around 367 PCR labs under the Indian Council of Medical Research were being used for testing samples, with 1,814 samples each by them per day.He said in Tamil Nadu alone there were about 126 RT- PCR/qPCR Labs where RNA/DNA research was pursued. The number of similar labs in the country and ICMR labs can add up to 1,000 in which case 3.76 lakh tests can be done per day.The petitioner said the Tamil Nadu government need not wait for the Central government for the Rs 1,000 crore for purchase of PCR machines and can utilise the 126 labs, he said.
