14 railway staff returning from Bengaluru quarantined in Tripura

A total of 14 railway employees, who arrived at Ambassa in Dhalai district of Tripura, in a train from Bengaluru carrying no passengers were taken to a quarantine facility, officials said on Monday.

After the train reached Ambassa, the penultimate station before Agartala, were shifted to the quarantine centre for 14 days on Sunday, district COVID-19 surveillance officer Dr Subhash Barua said.

Passenger train services in the country were suspended on March 21 in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Three days later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a nationwide lockdown for 21 days.

"The Bengaluru Cantonment-Agartala Humsafar Express was returning to Agartala without any passenger. The 14 people on board the train were employees of the Northeastern Frontier Railway," NFR chief PRO Subhanan Chanda told PTI from Guwahati.

Altogether 689 people including two foreigners were now kept in the quarantine facility of the district, but none of them showed any major symptoms of COVID-19, Barua said.

Over 7,000 people are under quarantine in the state with recent travel history outside or with preliminary symptoms, a government announcement said.

Meanwhile, transport department Principal Secretary Laihlia Darlong said more than 115 people of the state are stranded in different parts of the country and 1,400 labourers of West Bengal are stuck in Tripura since the lockdown was declared.

Darlong said 11 people stranded in Guwahati were shifted to the Tripura Bhawan there and all necessary arrangements were made for them.

Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Sunday has written to his counterparts in Assam, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Delhi, requesting them to arrange for food, accommodation, security and healthcare facilities to the citizens of Tripura, who were stranded in those states during the 21-day country-wide lockdown.

Deb said Tripura has a rice buffer stock that would last 76 days, 52 days' stock of wheat, sugar stock for 15 days, salt stock for 24 days, petrol stock for 8 days and 'sufficient' stock of LPG.

(Image - AP)