Seven-day mandatory quarantine has turned out to be huge trouble for the people.
The seven-day mandatory quarantine has turned out to be huge trouble for the people taking flights to Karnataka after resumption of domestic air-travel.
Karnataka has observed that many new cases are people that have travelled to the state from outside, prompting the administration to impose a seven-day institutional quarantine for passengers arriving from Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
This has caused difficulty to many.
Saurabh Gouniyal, who works in a restaurant in Bengaluru, has travelled with his 6-months pregnant wife, Mampi Das, from Delhi.
The couple was shocked by the costs of the quarantine at hotels.
"They are charging transport fee. Lunch charges. Dinner charges. It is coming to about - 3000 a day which is a lot of money. The government knows we are all financially hit by the lockdown," Mr Gouniyal said
The couple pleaded with authorities to let them go home but didn't succeed, and finally, they decided to travel back to Delhi.
They went to the departure gate again. But there were no flights available.
The couple later decided to stay at a hotel for a day and head back to Delhi tomorrow.
"This is so difficult for us, we have no choice so we are going to the hotel for a day. But tomorrow we are flying back to Delhi," he said.
Shilpa, another traveller from Delhi, also narrated her ordeal caused by the mandatory quarantine.
"I want to go to see my mother. That is the reason I have come. I tried to ask them if I could go straight. But they are insisting that I go to quarantine," Shilpa told NDTV.
Her cousin, Balaji, who came to meet her said that Shilpa has all the necessary medical documents but the authorities are not allowing her to go home.
"We have all the medical documents. She could actually have isolated at home. Her mother stays alone. But they would not listen. We have been looking after her mother for the past 45 days. Now she still has to wait to meet her daughter," Balaji told NDTV.
Karnataka government has announced a seven-day mandatory institutional quarantine for passengers returning from six states with highest coronavirus cases - Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh.
If the returnees test negative for COVID-19 in pool testing, they will be sent for home quarantine for another seven days.
Returnees from other low prevalence states will be asked to follow 14 days of home quarantine, according to the standard operating procedure (SOP) for entry of people from other states to Karnataka, in a statement issued by the state health department on Friday.
