Spike in cases: Tough rules on cards

Shyam Sundar Vattam | NT

Bengaluru: The rise in Covid cases in Bengaluru has become a cause of worry for the state government which is reportedly considering tough rules to check the epidemic before it goes out of control.

The situation has not come under control despite imposition of night curfew and week-end curfew across the State. People are still being callous and are not wearing masks, maintaining social distance or sanitizing their hands at regular intervals.

Health and Medical Education Minister Dr K. Sudhakar has already held two rounds of meetings to work out ways and means to check the spread of the virus but in vain. The spike in cases happened after the return of New year revelers from other states like Goa where thousands of people from all over the country had assembled to welcome the New Year. Many of them returned Covid positive. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had put its men on the job of tracking these Goa-returnees and subject them to the RTPCR test to prevent them from spreading the virus.

Sources told News Trail that the biggest task before BBMP is to track people who come to Karnataka via rail, road and flights from high-risk states like Kerala, Maharashtra, Goa,Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. With no intensive checking at the inter-state borders, people from these states are bringing the virus and spreading it here. Recently, hundreds of people from various districts of Karnataka who had been to a shrine in Tamil Nadu, tested positive. Likewise, passengers arriving at Bengaluru Railway Station from high-risk states were avoiding the RT-PCR test done at the entry point in Majestic.

During the second wave of Covid-19, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and local police would guard each and every coach and make every passenger undergo the RTPCR test mandatorily at KSR Station. But that system no longer exists. Since testing ha been left to the discretion of passengers, not all of them are undergoing tests voluntarily. Naturally, many of them spread the virus to local people. No response

CM Bommai had written to the railways to make the RT-PCR negative report mandatory for passengers from high-risk states entering Karnataka. So far, there has been no response from the railway authorities. If done, the negative report would be examined before allowing passengers into the state.