The central team in Calcutta received the “cooperation” of the Bengal government as the members visited a quarantine centre and a dedicated Covid-19 hospital on Thursday and later held a detailed meeting with top government officials.

Bengal chief secretary Rajiva Sinha said the inter-ministerial team visited Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute in Rajarhat, a state government quarantine centre, and M.R. Bangur Hospital, a dedicated Covid-19 hospital.

The chief secretary and the health secretary were present at the meeting through videoconference later in the day.

The team had visited some places in Calcutta on Tuesday afternoon to assess the lockdown.

“Whatever they wanted, we arranged. We have cooperated,” Sinha said. “But after registering our reservations. The stand of the state government is that this team should not have come without consulting the state government. We can’t accept this. The chief minister has written to the Prime Minister in this regard,” he added.

The chief secretary said he could not understand why two teams were sent to Bengal to assess the ground situation in eight districts although in terms of total number of Covid-19 patients and deaths the state was at the “12 or 13th place”.