The West Bengal government, which has been at loggerheads with the Narendra Modi-led Central government over several issues, on Friday wrote to the Union Health Ministry raising objection over the COVID-19 categorisation list that divides districts as red, orange and green zones.

Calling the fresh categorisation of 10 West Bengal districts as red zones “erroneous”, West Bengal Principal Health Secretary Vivek Kumar wrote to the Government informing that there were only four red zones in the state as against the ministry’s data.

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10 districts of West Bengal were shown under ‘red zone’ in the presentation during the Cabinet Secretary’s video conference with states on April 30, the letter said.

The state government has claimed that based on the current parameters of the Centre for categorisation of areas for COVID-19, only four districts — Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore — fall under red zone category.

The Union Health Ministry has finalised the list of containment zones and divided the states and districts into different categories according to the COVID-19 situation in these areas. The list will help the Centre devise a lockdown exit plan post May 3.

As per the list, 130 districts fall under the ‘red zone’, 284 in the ‘orange zone’ and 319 in ‘green zone’.

After consulting the state governments and the chief secretaries of the states, the health ministry has decided to put all metro cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, in the Red Zone. The Red Zone cities also include Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

All districts of Delhi have been included in the Red Zone category. Maharashtra, the most affected state, has the highest number of Red Zones – 14 districts – among all states.

In Tamil Nadu, 12 districts fall under the Red Zones, 19 in Uttar Pradesh, 10 in West Bengal while nine each in Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. Rajasthan has eight Red Zones.

Assam has 30 Green Zone districts, the highest.

Earlier, the West Bengal government had come under fire for allegedly not allowing the Inter-Ministerial Central Teams, deputed to the state to assess the lockdown situation, to carry out their duties.

The Centre’s decision to send the team has triggered a big row, with the Trinamool Congress government of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee questioning the need for such a delegation.

Mamata had shot off a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, describing the Centre’s decision as “unilateral”, and alleging it was sent without prior intimation, causing “breach of established protocol”.

She also dubbed the Union government’s selection of districts with ‘serious’ COVID-19 situation as a “figment of imagination”.

The IMCTs have reported several anomalies in the healthcare facilities in the state and also sought an explanation on the methodology used by ‘Committee of Doctors’ in West Bengal to ascertain death due to COVID-19.