Following a directive from the Centre on screening of 15 lakh international passengers arriving in India between January 18 and March 23, the Maharashtra government said it was closely monitoring nearly 35,000 passengers who had arrived in the State in the last few weeks.
Sources in the government said the daily count of passengers arriving in the State around mid-January was 16,000 a day, but dropped to 8,000 in the following month and nearly to 2,000 in the middle of March. “We had started the monitoring around January 18, and have been calling up each individual to keep a check on them. But the issue is even after identification and calling these persons, somehow we feel their testing for COVID-19 is not being carried out by health officials concerned. Not for everyone,” an official in the Home Department said.
Earlier on Friday, Union Cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba wrote to all States directing them to monitor 15 lakh international passengers who came to India between January 18 and March 23. He said such a list compiled by the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) was already shared with the States.
“We have been monitoring the passengers on our own, and have prepared our own list separate from the one forwarded by the BoI,” an official of the State government said.
