AURANAGABAD: Tourism industry stakeholders in Aurangabad have decided to hold an online protest on Friday over their demand for reopening tourist spots and monuments in the Maharashtra district.
Monuments have been closed since March this year following the outbreak of COVID-19.
Representatives of 10 associations here will make a video of their protest messages and post it on social media platforms on Friday, Aurangabad Tourism Development Foundation president Jaswant Singh told PTI.
Travel agents, representatives of hotels and restaurants, tourist guides, shopkeepers and handicraft workers will come together for the protest, Singh said.
Earlier, various associations here had demanded reopening of monuments to help those involved in tourism business sustain their livelihood.
The Aurangabad circle office of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) had also written to the state government for reopening monuments here.
Meanwhile, ten out of the nearly 10,000 train passengers, who were screened at the railway stations located within the BMC limits on Wednesday, tested COVID-19 positive, civic officials said.
Of the 10 passengers, the highest number of five tested positive at Bandra Terminus, followed by three at Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) and one each at Dadar and Borivali stations, they said.
Rapid antigen test was conducted on the passengers who showed signs of the infection during the screening at the railway stations, the officials said.
As many as 9,779 passengers were screened by the civic teams at the major railway stations in the city, with the highest number of 3,400 passengers at Mumbai Central, followed by 2,047 at Bandra Terminus, 2,000 at Dadar, 1,079 CSMT, 938 atBorivali and 315 at LTT station, they said.
The move to screen the passengers came after the Maharashtra government issued standard operating procedures (SOPs) on Monday, making an RT-PCR negative report mandatory for the domestic air travellers as well as railway and road passengers arriving from Delhi, Rajasthan, Goa and Gujarat states.
Accordingly, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) had directed the ward offices to deploy staff at the railway stations in the metropolis to check the passengers' documents and conduct tests, if necessary.
The BMC's circular issued on Tuesday also asked the ward officers to conduct rapid antigen tests on symptomatic passengers at the railway stations and to coordinate with the private laboratories for collection of samples for antigen testing.
The government's SOPs say that "passengers not testing or found COVID-19 positive shall be sent to COVID Care Centre (CCC)" with the cost of further care being borne by passengers.
Mumbai currently has over 2.78 lakh COVID-19 cases.
Meanwhile, a video went viral on social media, in which several passengers with masks on face and luggage in hands were seen waiting in line in a crowded subway with no social distancing being maintained.
According to sources in the railway administration, the video was from Bandra Terminus and the subway had witnessed heavy rush as two trains, one from Rajasthan and another from Gujarat, arrived at the station at almost the same time.
Western Railway spokesperson, however, did not respond to the queries about it.