The Government of Karnataka, on Thursday, announced that flights from five states will be banned in the state. The five states are Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan. However, they later clarified saying that the decision was to lessen the total number of flights landing in Bengaluru.
JC Madhuswamy announces the decision
Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister JC Madhuswamy announced the decision while speaking to the media after the cabinet meeting. He said: “There are a lot of people from these states who have come to Karnataka already and are in quarantine. Many of them in quarantine are testing positive in large numbers. If more people come we fear that they will also get infected. So unless those in quarantine finish their mandatory stay, we won’t relax the ban.”
The Minister then revealed: “We (the ministers) demanded the ban. We have a lot of asymptomatic cases from those coming from Maharashtra especially. We have to test everyone coming from these states. And even those who are in quarantine without symptoms fear they will also get it. If more people come, they will have to wait in quarantine to get tested and it is better to avoid that. So we have taken this decision.”
He further added: “It will take at least eight to 10 days for all the people in quarantine to be relieved. Let these people finish their quarantine period and then we will see about relaxing the travel restrictions.”
However, the minister later issued a clarity after there was news that the government had banned air-travel from these states. He said:”Karnataka has appealed to the Civil Aviation Ministry to take steps to lessen the air traffic to the State, with the sacred intention that there may not be adequate quarantine facilities, if there is huge turnout at a short span of time.”
The government had earlier banned travel from three states by road
Earlier, the government had banned travel-by-road from the states of Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Tamil Nadu. When flight operations resumed on May 25th, the government made 7 days of institutional quarantine compulsory for returnees from six highly affected COVID-19 states.
Source: NDTV
