KOLKATA: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged the Centre on Friday to stop international repatriation flights and domestic flights to Kolkata from states with a high COVID-19 prevalence till July 31 and relaxed the night curfew in the state by an hour from July 1.
She also said she wants the metro rail services to resume from July 1, but only with 100-per cent seat occupancy and no passenger standing.
"We have decided that (from July 1) the night curfew hours will be from 10 pm to 5 am. We also want the metro rail to resume services from July 1 while following all the precautionary and sanitisation norms and only with a 100-per cent seat occupancy policy," Banerjee told a press conference here.
Currently the night curfew hours are from 9 pm to 5 am.
Alleging that those coming to the state by air are not being adequately screened at the airports, leading to an increase in the number of coronavirus cases, Banerjee urged the Centre to stop domestic flights to Kolkata from states with a high COVID-19 prevalence till July 31.
"Recently we came to know that a few COVID-19 patients came from Chennai and were not screened at the airport. Later, they got themselves admitted to a hospital in Midnapore. We are planning to write a letter to the Centre to stop domestic flights and special trains to Kolkata till July 31 from hotspots and those states with a high number of COVID-19 cases," the chief minister said while inaugurating various projects online from the state secretariat.
She also urged the Union government to stop international repatriation flights to the state as the returnees are not following the institutional quarantine norms, leading to a spike in the number of coronavirus cases in West Bengal.
"As far as international flights are concerned, we will send a letter to the Centre to stop the service as of now. If they want to go ahead with their plan, then I think they should allow one flight a month by strictly following all the safety norms," Banerjee said.
"The domestic flights within the state from Kolkata to Bagdogra in Siliguri and Andal in Burdwan can operate. We do not have any objection to that," she added.
The chief minister said the Kolkata metro should ensure that it runs trains without any passenger standing or the coaches being overcrowded.
Earlier this week, Banerjee announced the extension of the coronavirus-induced lockdown in the state till July 31.
The chief minister accused opposition parties of indulging in politics at a time of crisis to score political brownie points.
"We have already stopped big gatherings, but some political parties are violating the lockdown norms and organising gatherings and rallies. They are conducting rallies without police permission. We will not tolerate this. If someone breaks the rule, the law will take its own course. I do not even spare my own party workers," she said.
Speaking about her party's "Martyr's Day" rally on July 21, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) supremo said it would be observed, but in a much different way.
"We will conduct a virtual meeting with our party leadership on July 3 to decide on the July 21 rally," she said.
West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee on Friday said the higher-secondary exams for the remaining papers have been cancelled, keeping in mind the safety of students as the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging on.
As scheduled earlier, the HS (the state board's plus two tests) exams for the remaining papers on three days in July will not be held in the wake of recommendations by an expert committee formed by the West Bengal Council of Higher Secondary Education to guide whether the exams can be held in the present COVID-19 situation, Chatterjee told a press meet here.
"For us, the safety and well-being of students remain the topmost priority. We were making all arrangements to hold the exams on July 2, 6 and 8, but as the coronavirus is spreading, we are left with no alternatives," he said.
The minister said based on the expert committee's recommendations and in the wake of the Centre's submission in the Supreme Court on the CBSE exams on Thursday, the decision to cancel the tests for the remaining higher secondary papers was taken.
He said the council will shortly announce how the evaluation of the papers, the exams for which had to be cancelled due to the pandemic, will be done.
The results of the HS exams will be declared on July 31.
The Centre and the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) informed the Supreme Court on Thursday that they have decided to cancel the Class 10 and 12 examinations scheduled from July 1-15 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and those would be conducted later.
The education minister said if any candidate had reservations about the evaluation method of the remaining papers, he or she can mail an appeal to the HS council for writing those papers after the COVID-19 situation improved and get the new dates for the exams.
"The Chief Minister's Office, HS council president and I have been getting thousands of distress calls from the candidates for the past one week or so about the fate of the remaining exams. I hope they will be free from anxiety now," Chatterjee said.
While the HS exams for most of the papers were conducted from March 13 to 21, those for some of the papers -- scheduled to be held on March 23, 25 and 27 -- could not be held due to the emerging situation over the coronavirus pandemic.
The papers include education, physics, nutrition, accountancy, Sanskrit, chemistry, economics, mass communication, Persian, Arabic, French, statistics, costing and taxation, home management and family resource management.
The minister also urged the private schools affiliated to the CBSE not to hike their tuition fees and charges under the heads of computer, library etc. as the parents are under a "serious economic distress" due to the lockdown and the students are not availing these facilities in the present situation.
He said while the state government had repeatedly asked the private schools to refrain from such practices, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) should also prevail upon them.
The state on Friday registered its highest single-day increase in COVID-19 cases on Friday, recording 542 fresh infections, to push the tally to 16,190 as the number of fatalities also jumped by 10, officials said.
A total of 10,535 patients have recovered from the respiratory ailment, a bulletin issued by the health department said Of the latest fatalities, eight patients died because of comorbidities where COVID-19 was incidental, it said, adding that the toll now stands at 616.
Four deaths were reported from Howrah, three from Kolkata and one each from Hooghly, Darjeeling and South 24 Parganas, the bulletin said.
Since Thursday, 345 people have been discharged from various hospitals in the state, it said.
There are 5,039 active COVID-19 cases at present.