CHANDIGARH: Punjab government has failed to trace 1330 passengers out of 55,000 who arrived in the state from abroad in last two months.
It has now come to the light that these passengers have violated the quarantine guidelines.
The district-wise break-up of these NRIs is: Jalandhar (Rural) 204), Ludhiana 172, Mohali 128, Gurdaspur 118, Batala and Amritsar (Rural) 84 each and Hoshiarpur 63.
Now fresh directions have been issued by the state home department to all divisional, deputy and police commissioners to trace and quarantine all passengers who arrived in the state after January 30. They have been asked to divide the districts into sectors and appoint section officers on 8 to 10 villages for tracing of passengers.
"The testing has been scaled up by us, but the people who have returned from foreign countries and NRIs are continuously hiding to avoid the fourteen days home quarantine. They must follow the health protocol in there and public interest," said a health department official on the condition of anonymity.
Talking with this correspondent, Punjab Chief Secretary Karan A Singh says: "Till date, more than 48,000 NRIs have come to the state and almost all of them have been traced baring a few as the passport numbers and address given by them were incorrect. We have again written to the Union government to verify and
send us the correct address.
"We are the first state in the country to track all the NRIs. The NRIs have been tracked and many of them have been home quarantined and not only that the people they met have also been isolated. A few NRIs came and flew to their respective countries. The information which we have at our hand is about the ones we traced the houses of the passengers in towns and villages."
"A few of them are not happy as they have been confirmed to their homes but we appeal to them to them to stay at their homes," he added.