98 more air passengers skipped mandatory Covid test on Friday & fled away

April 23: On Friday, 98 more air passengers fled away without doing the mandatory Covid test. Earlier, on Wednesday, 385 air passengers evaded the mandatory Covid-19 test. It is in this regard that FIR was registered by the Cachar District Administration against 385 erring air passengers.

Suman Choudhury, District Media Expert on Friday informed that 511 passengers who arrived at Silchar airport was taken to Mahatma Gandhi Model Hospital at Tikal near Salganga in Cachar for the mandatory Covid test on the basis of payment of Rs. 500 (for RT-PCR). Out of the 511 air passengers, 76 of them were given exemption on various genuine grounds as per the notification issued by the Government of Assam.

However, after exemption of 76 passengers, 435 of them were supposed to do Covid test. But in reality, only 337 gave their swab samples, out of which 8 persons were detected as Covid-19 positive. That means, a total of 98 air passengers fled away without doing the test. The district administration would take stringent measures against such erring passengers and lodge FIR against them.

As per the latest SOP all air passengers travelling from outside Assam were to undergo mandatory Covid test on arrival in the airports within Assam. As such, Cachar district administration made arrangement for testing the passengers at Mahatma Gandhi Model Hospital at Tikol. The testing was started on Wednesday.