Puducherry Jan 30 PTI Former Puducherry chief minister V Narayanasamy on Sunday hit out at the Union territory government for conducting low number of tests to identify COVID-19 cases If the tests are conducted on a wider scale the actual prevalence of the pandemic could become more clearer the Congress leader said in a virtual press conference adding that the Puducherry government was playing down the facts He also took exception to the move by the Centre and Puducherry government to privatise distribution of electricity in the UT The Puducherry government should resist the Centres move instead of playing second fiddle to the plan of privatisation of distribution of electricity Narayanasamy added Chief Minister N Rangasamy should write to the Prime Minister Home Ministry and Power Ministry to oppose the privatisation plan as this approach would prove to be detrimental to the common people farmers and the poor Commenting on the New York Times report regarding Pegasus spyware he said the newspaper had claimed that the Indian government had bought the software as part of a deal with Israel Prime Minister Narendra Modi had denied any such purchase by the government he said adding that Modi should tender his resignation for misleading the nation over the issue PTI COR HDA HDA

Puducherry Jan 30 PTI Puducherry registered a rise in the number of daily cases of coronavirus with as many as 923 people testing positive for the virus on SundayPuducherry and other three outlying regions of Karaikal Mahe and Yanam together recorded the new cases which were identified at the end of examination of 3177 samplesWith this the overall caseload in the union territory reached 160747While Puducherry region alone accounted for 650 fresh cases out of the total 923 cases Karaikal reported 186 Yanam 72 and Mahe 15The number of fresh cases logged on Saturday was 855Five more people succumbed to the infection during last twenty-four hours taking the toll to 1928 Director of Health G Sriramulu said in a release The deceased were in the age group of 50 years and 85 years and included two womenThe Director further said 2433 patients recovered and were discharged during the last 24 hours and the overall recoveries stood at 147792The active cases were 11027 of which 189 were in hospitals taking treatment and the remaining 10838 patients were in home isolationThe Department of Health has tested so far 2156984 samples and has found 1808780 out of them to be negativeSriramulu said the test positivity rate was 2905 percent while the fatality and recovery rates were 120 percent and 9194 percent respectivelyThe Department of Health has administered so far 15 33395 doses which comprised 920981 first doses 605041 second and 7373 booster doses PTI COR ROH ROH