VELLORE: With the stranded crew of vehicles from Vellore district crying for help to cross a border toll plaza in Odisha, Lok Sabha MP DM Kathir Anand has appealed to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to intervene for their safe return.
About hundred ambulances and cabs, which ferried patients from CMC Hospital in Vellore to their homes in West Bengal, have been stuck at the border toll plaza in Balasore in Odisha since April 20. The police have denied them access to move back through the toll plaza. And they are deprived of access to food and shelter.
“I started from Vellore on 17 April, dropped five patients and attendants in West Bengal, then returned. But the police at the Balasore toll plaza blocked us and did not allow us to move,” said Ajmal, a stranded cab driver.
He said the police and other department officials were not responding properly to their request to let them return through the toll plaza located on the Odisha-West Bengal border.
On Friday, Vellore MP Kathir Anand sent a letter to Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik to seek his intervention.
“Hundred vehicles carrying patients from CMC Hospital in Vellore to West Bengal were blocked at Lakshmanth Toll plaza. They do not have proper access to food, shelter and medical facilities. Their finances are drying up,” he said in the letter.
The DMK MP stated, “Considering the gravity of the situation, I request you to treat this matter as urgent and arrange for special travel permission for them and do the needful.”