Nagpur: The Nagpur Municipal Corporation (NMC) has arranged for 50 beds as an alternative at the only VNIT hostel it is left with to quarantine international flyers arriving in Sharjah flight early Sunday morning. Additional municipal commissioner Sanjay Nipane said as per the state and central government SOPs, passengers have to be in paid quarantine.
At the time of going to press, the NMC did not know the number of passengers who would land in Nagpur. The flyers would be provided a list of 13 hotels (total 240 beds) to chose for the paid quarantine and ferried in five NMC buses.
“Institutional quarantine at VNIT will be offered only under exceptional circumstances,” said Nipane.
The VNIT centre had been in operation for other international flyers who arrived via different Indian cities after the UK-strain scare since December.
The VNIT administration has taken back all but one of its hostels from the NMC which had initially been running a quarantine centre and later a Covid Care Centre (CCC) on the campus. During April to July, all the hostels could host over 600 Covid suspects.
The only hostel left with NMC has a capacity of 110 beds of which 50 are being provided for international passengers.
As reported by TOI on Saturday, the flyers would have to bear the expenses of hotel charges ranging between Rs2000 to Rs4000 per day as well as RTPCR testing. Those put up at the VNIT centre would get a free RTPCR on the fifth day of arrival. The flights are scheduled to land at Nagpur from Sharjah on Feb 14, 21, and 28.
Officials said in case more than 110 flyers chose to stay in government quarantine centre, they will be acquiring one block of Pachpaoli police quarters where a CCC is operational. Officials feel the flyers would be suspects and must be kept in a separate premises away from confirmed positive cases staying at a CCC. One option they say is restarting the centre at MLA Hostel which is vacant right now.