BBMP goofs up on quarantine hotel

BENGALURU: A goof-up by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike has delayed the quarantine of passengers who arrived from New Delhi. They will be spending more days away from home.Fourteen passengers who arrived on May 16 were taken to a hotel on Infantry Road. But when three days passed by without a single health check-up, they began to think something was amiss.“We were given good food and things were okay. But not a single doctor or nurse came to check if we had Covid-19 symptoms. By the third day (May 18), we realised something was wrong and called up the local police station,” said a passenger.

Later in the evening, police arrived at the hotel along with BBMP officials. “We were told by the officials that they had made a mistake. This hotel did not figure in the list available for quarantine purposes. So, everyone had to be shifted. We were then taken to another hotel near Richmond Circle,” he said.

Another passenger, who boarded the train at Secunderabad, said, “We are spending `5,000 a day as we need to take two rooms for our family. We did that in the first hotel and now we doing it the new hotel. Corona-related checks were done today (Tuesday) and I was told that my 14-day quarantine will begin now.”

“BBMP officials were apologetic over the mix-up. They told us not to disclose this to anyone. That is why we are scared to give our names. There is no clarity on when our 14-day will end now,” he said.Another passenger said the new hotel was better than the previous one. “However, we are keen on going home. Why are we shuffling between hotels now?”  Despite repeated calls over a period of two days to BBMP Special Commissioner Ravi Kumar, who is in charge of housing migrants at hotels, there has been no response.

Flight from Malaysia lands at KIA
The first flight to Bengaluru in Phase-II of Vande Bharat Mission of the Ministry of Civil Aviation reached Kempegowda International Airport at 6.44 pm from Malaysia. AI 1325 had a scheduled time of 7 pm. It left for Ahmedabad from here. A total of 142 passengers were on board the flight. 94 of them alighted at KIA while 48 more left for Ahmedabad.