India on Friday announced that all Indo-Bangladesh passenger trains and buses will remain suspended till April 15 and only four Indo-Nepal border checkposts would remain operational as the number of coronavirus positive cases in the country climbed to 81.
“Indo-Bangladesh passenger buses and trains will remain suspended till April 15. Along the Indo-Nepal border, four checkposts will remain operational. For citizens of Bhutan and Nepal, visa-free entry to the country will continue,” Anil Malik, an official of the Ministry of Home Affairs said.
To check the spread of coronavirus, the Indian government has also decided to inspect international traffic through land immigration checkposts. “We have 37 such checkposts and we will allow traffic through 19 of them from midnight tomorrow,” he said.
Human traffic will be allowed in Mankachhar in Assam, Raxaul (Indo-Nepal border), Mizoram, Indo-Myanmar border, Agartala (Indo-Bangladesh), Banbasa (Uttarakhand, Indo-Nepal) and Chadarbandha (West Bengal, Indo-Bangladesh border), according to ministry officials.
Reiterating that the outbreak of coronavirus in the country is not an epidemic, health ministry officials said 124 evacuees from Japan and 112 evacuees from China are being discharged from Friday onwards after having tested negative for coronavirus in the second round of tests.
The Indian government has brought 42,296 passengers under community surveillance, out of which 2,559 were symptomatic and 522 hospitalized including 17 foreign nationals, according to a health ministry official.
“Contact tracing of these cases is being actively pursued. So far, this has led to identification of more than 4,000 contacts who have also been put under surveillance,” the official said.
On the Epidemic Act being invoked by the Centre, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry said, “It is important to understand that it is not a health emergency. We are trying to support the initiative taken by several states in terms of managing the situation.”
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