Ahmedabad civic body mulling Covid-19 test for international fliers on arrival

AHMEDABAD: Entry to Ahmedabad city is not without scanning.
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation is checking all vehicles from Vadodara and Surat that enter the city and is now exploring the possibility of scanning international passengers as they arrive at the airport.
Senior officials said that at present there is no proposal to scan domestic passengers.
“These passengers are scanned as they enter the airport at their respective cities so there is no point scanning them here again,” said an official.“We may scan international passengers at the arrival of the airport,” he added.
When asked, Rajiv Kumar Gupta, additional chief secretary, forest and environment, who is overall incharge of activities to control spread of Covid-19 pandemic in Ahmedabad, said that the final decision is yet to be taken.
The official said that vehicles coming from Surat and Vadodara are being checked before their entry in the city.
A senior health officer said that earlier all vehicles coming to the city were being checked and those found Covid-19 positive were being sent back to their original destinations. Now they are being referred to a hospital or covid care centre.
The official said that not just private cars and luxury buses, even state transport buses are being stopped and each passenger is being checked as they got down either at Gita Mandir, Naroda or at Ranip.
However, the official said that vehicles coming from Saurashtra region are still not checked. The officials said that on an average 1,500 tests are performed at check posts at the highways and at bus stands.