MANGALURU: Despite the government sounding a high alert in the border districts in view of the ‘Delta Plus’ variant found in Kerala and Maharashtra, no measures are being taken at railway stations in Mangaluru to check passengers arriving from Kerala and Maharashtra, till now.
On July 1, the State government issued guidelines, making negative RT-PCR certificates not older than 72 hours or vaccination certificate of at least one dose mandatory for passengers coming to Karnataka by flight, bus, train, taxi, or personal transport.
Dakshina Kannada DC Dr Rajendra K V had earlier said that police, revenue and health officials will work 24x7 at all checkposts in the border areas, including the inter-state border at Talapady, and allow people to enter Dakshina Kannada only if they produce RT-PCR negative reports. Railway authorities were directed to ensure that all passengers from Kerala and Maharashtra carry negative RT-PCR certificates.
However, people in the district have expressed concern that though the authorities are ensuring stricter border surveillance of people travelling by road and air, railway stations lack such measures.
“Even after a week of sounding a high alert, no measures are being taken to monitor people travelling by train. Scores of people travel by train for education, business, health and other purposes. Restrictions have been eased and the administration should ensure proper surveillance of train passengers so that the district does not suffer further due to the ‘Delta Plus’ variant,” said an activist from the city.
DHO Dr Kishore Kumar told TNIE that the department is facing shortage of staff, and the available teams are already on Covid duty. “However, we have formed a separate team which will start Covid-19 testing at two railway stations from Friday in Mangaluru. We have written to the railway department to deploy the medical team for this purpose,” he said.