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On the eve of the World TB day on the 24th of March, the WHO announced that there were 63,000 Multi-drug resistant TB cases in India till 2010. However, the Government has contested these numbers saying that there are only 10,267 such cases. According to the annual status report by the Revised National TB Control Programme (RNCTP), till the end of 2011, 10267 cases were diagnosed with MDR-TB and around 7000 were treated.
RNCTP's arguments in their favour is that most of the studies in India on MDR-TB were done using non-standard methods with very small sample sizes taken from tertiary level care facilties.
RNCTP has done a more precise estimate as per global guidelines in Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra. They found that the incidence of MDR-TB stood at less than 3% of new cases and 12-17% in re-treatment cases. They are now covering UP and Tamilnadu and plan to cover rajasthan and MP in the near future.
References: The Hindu