A day after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath asked private labs to reduce prices for RT-PCR tests, the government announced that the private labs will now charge Rs 700 for the RT-PCR test for COVID-19, also called the gold test.
Earlier, the labs were charging Rs 1,600 for this test.
Additional Chief Secretary (Health) Amit Mohan Prasad said that if a person went for RT-PCR test, the private labs should charge Rs 700 including the goods and services tax (GST).
In case of home collection of the test sample, the charges will be Rs 900, including GST.
Meanwhile, the fresh coronavirus positive cases in Uttar Pradesh came down under 2,000 with 1,703 people testing positive during the past 24 hours on Tuesday, taking the tally to 5,45,545.
But taking no chances, the UP government has directed all the districts to go for focused Covid testing for three days from Tuesday for the people taking part in marriage functions.
Prasad said that the focused testing in all the 75 districts would be done of the marriage halls/ banquets staff, caterers, band party, flower and light decoration vendors from December 1 to 3.
Meanwhile, there are 23,670 active COVID-19 cases in the state. A total of 5,14,087 COVID-19 patients have recovered in the state, including 2,059 during the past 24 hours.
The state conducted 1,43,787 Covid tests on Monday, taking the total tests in the state to 1,94,66,550, the highest in the country.