15 districts account for 64% of Covid-19 cases, says Niti Aayog CEO

NEW DELHI: Fifteen districts are contributing 64% of the Covid-19 cases in the country and out of these five account for 50% of the cases, according to Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant.



These five districts include Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Chennai. All of Delhi and all of Mumbai have been considered as a district each for the purpose of the study.

“These five cities are critical for India. States must strengthen containment strategies and undertake rigorous testing and contact tracing,” Kant said.

Of these, five highest contributors are Mumbai (17%), Delhi (11.3%), Ahmedabad (9.8%), Chennai (5%) and Pune (3.4%), an analysis by the government think tank has shown.

In the five-day median average of cases, exponential growth is seen in four of the top five districts.

Chennai has the lowest recovery rate (12.3%) followed by Mumbai (15.7%). Highest is Delhi at 32.3%, the data showed.

Ahmedabad has the highest fatality rate of 6.4%. Delhi is at 1.1%. The doubling rate in the top five districts is much worse than the national average. The doubling rate in Chennai is 3, Delhi 3.6, Pune 4.7, Mumbai 6.4 and Ahmedabad 6.1.

The data also showed the contribution of the top districts with caseloads and their contribution in the national account. For example Mumbai which accounts for 17% of the cases in Maharashtra contributed 61.3% to the state’s cases. Ahmedabad contributed 71.5% to the cases in Gujarat. Chennai contributed about 50% to the cases in Tamil Nadu while Pune accounted for 12.4% of the state’s cases.

Indore which accounts for 3% of the cases nationally, contributed 53% to the case load in Madhya Pradesh, according to the analysis undertaken by Niti Aayog.

Thane in Maharashtra accounted for nearly 11% of the cases in the state, while Jaipur accounted for 33% of the cases in Rajasthan. Similarly, Jodhpur, another hotspot accounted for 25% of the cases in the state.

In Gujarat, Surat contributed 11.3% of the cases in the state, while Kolkata which accounted for 1.2% of the cases nationally, contributed 53% of the cases in West Bengal. In Uttar Pradesh, Agra which is one of the hotspots contributed 22% to the cases in the state. In Telangana, Hyderabad, accounted for nearly 61% of the cases in the state, while Bhopal accounted for 19% of the caseload in Madhya Pradesh.