HYDERABAD: Nearly 100 TSRTC buses travel every day to bordering districts of Maharashtra from Nizamabad and Adilabad districts of Telangana, raising fears of cross-border transmission of Covid-19. Even though the two districts of Yavatmal and Amravati are under lockdown due to rising cases, the State has not imposed any travel restrictions between these two districts and Adilabad, from where several palle-velugu and express buses ply daily.
Express has learnt that every day, the TSRTC operates nearly 67 buses to bordering areas of Yavatmal, Amravati, Pandharkawada and Chandrapur. “These buses are only until border areas of Maharashtra. We have not cancelled any bus, but our conductors and drivers are sanitising the buses and taking due Covid precautions,” said a senior official from TSRTC.
Nizamabad also operates nearly 23 buses to areas around Nanded and has about 25 buses arriving from Maharashtra. These operate in various border areas such as Nanded, Degloor, Udgir, Dharmabad, Kinwat, Malegaon and Hanegaon. Since Monday, up to March 1, several Maharashtra towns like Akola, Washim, Buldhana, Amravati and Yavatmal are facing restrictions and lockdown. Areas in Nanded and Latur are also seeing a sharp rise in cases.
While it is learnt that discussions are underway to set up a border checkpoint where passengers would be tested via Rapid Antigen Testing, these have not yet come up. “We have one border checkpost in Nizamabad district which will conduct RAT tests on the incoming travellers. We also plan to have a RAT testing centre at Bodhan,” said Dr Sudharshan, DMHO of Nizamabad.
In Adilabad district, the DMHO has ordered a seven-day isolation period for those returning from Maharashtra. “We are keeping up the target of conducting 1,000 tests. Apart from this, we have ordered for track-trace-and-test of those returning from Maharashtra,” added Adilabad DMHO Dr Narender Rathod.