Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi said the government was taking necessary steps to up India's coronavirus testing capacity to at least 10 lakh tests per day in the upcoming weeks, Livemint reported.

The Prime Minister on Monday (27 July) launched three 'high throughput' testing facilities in Kolkata, Noida, and Mumbai via video conferencing. The facilities are located at the national institutes of Indian Council of Medical Research in the three cities.

The three laboratories, the firsts outside Delhi, will together have the capacity of testing as many as 10,200 samples a day and reduce turnaround time and exposure of lab personnel to infectious clinical materials.

Speaking on the occasion, he said, "Crores of people are fighting the Covid-19 pandemic. Today we launched three high tech testing labs, which will help West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh."

The Prime Minister said, "These high tech labs will not be specific for Covid-19 and in future it will be for Hepatitis B, Dengue, HIV. These tests will also be done here."

The PM said India only had one testing centre in January and has reached to at least 1,300 Covid-19 testing labs at present, while underlining that the country was now testing nearly 5 lakh sample everyday.

Hailing the decisions of his government to combat the spread of the Covid-19 such as nationwide lockdown, Modi said, India took right decisions at the right time was now in a better position as compared to other countries.

"The fatalities in India due to Covid-19 is less as compared to other countries and the recovery rate is much higher and it is improving day by day," Modi said.

Despite crossing the 14 lakh mark on Monday, recovery rate in India is 63.92 per cent.

(With inputs from IANS)