Supreme Court Calls for Uniformity in Fees for Covid-19 Testing

June 19, 2020

Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in India, the testing fees charged has been a point of discussion. On 19^th June 19, 2020, during a hearing at the Supreme Court, it was observed by the bench comprising of Justice S.K Paul, M.R Shah, and Ashok Bhushan that the fee for Covid-19 testing must be uniform or same across the country and has asked the Central Government to fix an upper price cap. As per reports, in some states, people have charged as high up to Rs 4500 while in some other states the charges are as low as Rs 2200.

During the last week of May, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) had removed the earlier upper price cap of Rs 4500 (set by ICMR on 17^th March) that it had set for Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) tests. The Supreme Court Bench stated that the upper limit must be fixed throughout the country.

States that currently have Upper Price Cap

On 17^th June 2020, the Union Home Minister taking note of the rising Covid-19 cases in the National Capital New Delhi has set a price cap of Rs 2400 in New Delhi.
Uttar Pradesh has set a price cap of Rs 2500 for RT PCR tests.
Maharashtra has a price cap of Rs 2,200 for private laboratories.
In Telangana as well the price cap for RT PCR test has been set at Rs 2,200

Covid-19 in India

Until 18^th June 2020, India has conducted tests of 62,49,668 samples with 3,80,532 samples being reported positive. The recovery rate stands at 53.79 percent. With 13,586 cases on 18th June- The highest number of single-day positive cases were reported.

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