DW BUREAU / chandigarh Haryana's five NCR districts together have registered a 14-fold rise in COVID-19 fatalities and seven-fold jump in cases of infection in June alone, prompting the state government to pay special attention to check the spread of the pandemic in these districts. The five districts under Haryana government's closer scrutiny are Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonipat, Jhajjar and Rohtak, said officials. As per the state's Health Department data, coronavirus-related fatalities in these five districts were 14 as on June 1 but rose to 197 by June 30. The cumulative cases in these districts at the beginning of June were 1,653, which rose to 11,122 by June 30. As on July 2, these five Haryana districts accounted for nearly 12,000 of the total 15,509 cases and 209 of the 251 fatalities. For entire Haryana, the cases of coronavirus infection rose six-fold in June while the fatalities due to it registered an 11-fold increase. Haryana's NCR districts of Gurgaon and Faridabad have emerged as the worst-hit districts in the state. As on June 1, Gurgaon had 903 cases with four deaths, which increased to 5,347 infections and 91 fatalities by June 30. Similarly, Faridabad had 392 cases with eight fatalities on June 1 which rose to 3,733 cases with 77 fatalities by June 30. At the beginning of the month, Sonipat had 212 cases, Jhajjar 101 and Rohtak 45, which rose to 1,208, 261 and 573, respectively by June end. Fatalities recorded on June 1 in Sonipat, Jhajjar and Rohtak were one, nil and one respectively, which increased to 18, four and seven respectively on June 30, as per the health department data. Overall, total cases in entire Haryana, which has 22 districts, were 2,356 on June 1 with 21 deaths which increased to 14,548 cases with 236 deaths. The positive sign was that recovery rate went up from 44.78 per cent at the beginning of the last month for the entire Haryana to nearly 70 per cent at the end of the month. The rate at which cases double also saw improvement going up from eight days to 15 days. Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala on Thursday said the government will increase testing, hospital beds and ventilators to tackle coronavirus infection in these five NCR districts which have been worst-hit by the pandemic. Special attention will be paid to the districts of Gurgaon, Faridabad, Sonipat, Rohtak and Jhajjar, Chautala had told reporters after a meeting chaired by Union Home Minister Amit Shah and attended by chief ministers of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Delhi. To deal with the cases of coronavirus infection in the entire National Capital Region, the Union government and the governments of Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh are now working together, Chautala had said. Increasing sampling, better contact-tracing, tracking those with travel history and house-to-house surveys by health workers, especially among the vulnerable sections of society, were some of the measures which the health department was taking to check the spread of infection, officials said. Earlier, as cases continued to rise in Haryana NCR districts, Health Minister Anil Vij had cited movement of people from Delhi into these districts as the reason behind the surge in cases. India's COVID-19 cases soared by over 20,000 in a day for the first time taking the country's total tally to 6,25,544 on Friday, while the death toll climbed to 18,213 with 379 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The country recorded 20,903 coronavirus infections in the last 24 hours till Friday 8 am, with Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi. (editor@dailyworld.in)