Yogi govt slashes cost of Covid-19 RT-PCR test in private labs, capped at Rs 1,600/-

New Delhi: In a major step towards expansion of RT-PCR test for Coronavirus, the Yogi government has capped its price at Rs 1,600/-.

Private labs won’t be able to charge more than this, after this order comes into effect from September 11.
Earlier, the rate of RT-PCR test was fixed at Rs 2,500.

The reduction in prices has been effected due to higher availability of COVID-19 testing kits in the country and also with an objective to reduce the burden on government machinery.

At present, most of the testing is done at government labs which are financed by state governments and thus the citizens have pay no charge for this.

The state has also fixed the maximum price of confirmatory TrueNat tests at Rs 1,600. The ICMR has given approval to several indigenous manufacturers of COVID-19 test kits and this has pushed up availability and effected a drop in prices.

Earlier this week, Maharashtra further slashed the rates for RT-PCR COVID-19 tests conducted by private laboratories.

Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) is a laboratory technique widely used in the diagnosis of genetic diseases and to measure gene expression in research.

Till date, Uttar Pradesh has 2.85 lakh confirmed cases of COVID-19 out of which 64,028 are active cases of infection and death toll stands at 4,112.

UP has been the most aggressive and most pro-active states in scanning the Covid-19 patients and conducting Corona tests.

The state crossed the 1 lakh tests/day mark about six weeks ago, when most other states were conducting only 10,000-20,000 tests per day.