Sadananda Gowda urges EAM Jaishankar to repatriate stranded Kannadigas from Gulf nations

A day after a controversy broke out over Union Minister Sadananda Gowda skipping institutional quarantine after he travelled to Bengaluru, he has written to Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar to repatriate Kannadigas from Gulf countries. In a letter to Jaishankar, he has said that thousands of thousands of Kannadigas are stranded despite fulfilling conditions of preference guidelines issued by embassies in Gulf countries. He urged EAM to 'personally intervene' and instruct concerned to arrange flights to Mangalore/ Bangalore from se countries in existing schedule.

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This comes even as Central government has launched ''Vande Bharat Mission'' on May 7 to bring back Indians stranded in various countries due to coronavirus-related restrictions. Under Phase I of mission, government evacuated a total of 6,527 Indians from Gulf region and from countries like US, UK, Philippines, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Maldives.

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Backdated SOP

Earlier on Monday, Union Minister Sadananda Gowda skipped institutional quarantine after travelling to Bengaluru on a flight, from Delhi. As controversy broke out, Karnataka Health Ministry issued a backdated addendum to Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) issued earlier exempting ministers from quarantine. former Karnataka Chief Minister had skipped mandatory quarantine citing his position of responsibility. SOP released earlier did t mention any exemptions for ministers or officers to mandatory institutional quarantine to people travelling through domestic flights which resumed operations on Monday. 

addendum which has been dated May 23 reads: " ministers of Union Government or State Government or Officers on ir official duty who are travelling across states will be exempted from requirements of quarantine as has been done for health professionals and ors in para 4 (e)."

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addendum also exempts persons obtaining a valid 'COVID negative' certificate from ICMR, t more than two days old from date of journey are exempted from institutional quarantine. Such a person will instead be asked to go for 14 days of home quarantine. addendum also allows airlines crew on official duty to be exempted from quarantine. 

Domestic flights commence

Domestic air flight services commenced from May 25 after almost two months of lockdown due to Covid-19. Union Civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri anunced that domestic flight operations shall be restricted to 1/3rd capacity of approved summer schedule 2020 along with a new fare limit to make flights affordable. He said that for this fare structure sets a minimum and maximum level for three months.  Flight routes had been divided into 7 sections-flying times of fewer than 40 minutes, from 40 to 60 minutes, 60-90 minutes, 90-120 minutes, 120-150 minutes, 150-180 minutes and from 180 to 210 minutes. 

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