Mumbai: Days after the Supreme Court ordered that the government ensure that COVID-19 tests be conducted free of cost, a Delhi-based doctor has moved the court seeking a modification of the court’s order. The doctor, Kaushal Kant Mishra, in his petition has argued that such an order places an “unfair burden on the private labs” and “disincentivises private labs at a time when India needs to test more and more to detect COVID-19 cases and curb its spread”.On March 17, the ICMR had issued an advisory allowing private labs to conduct tests and the charge was fixed at Rs 4,500. The advisory had said that private labs should conduct tests free of cost for the Economically Weaker Section (EWS) categories subject to the government reimbursing them immediately.The apex court, however, on April 8 observed that this price might not be within the means of a majority of the Indian population and irrespective of the person’s capacity, the tests should be available for free.According to a news report published in The Hindu, Mishra, represented by senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan and advocate Pooja Dhar has sought that the court allow ICMR’s charge to conduct the tests.Since the apex court did not specify how this cost will be recovered, Mishra in his application, has said, “If the government does not provide immediate reimbursement to the private laboratories, there is a real risk that they may stop testing for COVID-19, thus posing a direct and inevitable risk to the health of persons across India through unknown transmission and contraction of the disease.”Also read: Free COVID-19 Testing in Private Labs: Here’s Why It’s Not Right to Criticise the SC OrderThere has been a steep rise in the number of persons infected by the novel coronavirus. The confirmed cases jumped to 8,447 on April 12 and at least 273 persons have succumbed to COVID-19 so far.Following the Supreme Court’s order, several private laboratories said that they expected the government to step in and come up with modalities to sustain testing facilities and also their growing expenses.In a report on private labs response to the recent Supreme Court order, PTI has quoted Arjun Dang, chief executive officer of Dr Dangs Lab, as saying that they endorsed the Supreme Court’s judgment which aims at increasing accessibility to COVID-19 testing and to make it affordable for the common man.“Private labs are barely able to recover costs at the government-mandated cost of Rs 4,500. Keeping this in mind we hope the government comes up with modalities so that testing in private laboratories remains sustainable,” Dang said. He said his lab is currently following the apex court’s order and doing the test free of cost while awaiting further clarity from the government.“…for private labs there are numerous fixed costs, including for reagents, consumables, skilled manpower and maintenance of specific infrastructure, Dang has argued.Mishra’s petition takes note of the condition in which private labs have been functioning and he says, “Even the present capacity of the labs, both government and private, appear to be woefully insufficient to obtain accurate data and control the pandemic. The consequence is that at a time when testing across the country has to be ramped up and the nation enters the most critical phase, the private labs have been burdened with offering free testing, ignoring the fact that the few pathogen labs which are well equipped at the time of the disaster would be actually disincentivised to continue to function.”In his petition, Mishra has also asked the court to direct the government to install pathogen labs in local municipal and panchayat areas so that free testing by the government could be increased to manage the capacity.