64 Indians brought back from Singapore quarantined in Gurugram

On Friday, 64 Haryana residents, who were stranded abroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic reached Gurugram and were quarantined in hotels and community centres. The

On Friday, 64 Haryana residents, who were stranded abroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic reached Gurugram and were quarantined in hotels and community centres. The district administration said that the passengers are from Singapore. They arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport on Friday as part of the country’s biggest repatriation exercise—Vande Bharat Mission—to bring back Indian citizens stranded abroad due to the international lockdown in the wake of Covid-19. According to state government officials, 5,000 people will arrive in Haryana in the next week.

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In a press statement issued on Friday, the district administration said that these overseas travellers are from Gurugram and other districts of Haryana. They were screened at the airport to detect signs or symptoms of the Influenza-like-illness (ILI) before being shifted to quarantine facilities in different parts of the city.

Accommodation arrangements for them have been made at three hotels—Hilton Double Tree Sector 56, Best Western Skycity Civil Lines, Oyo Dolphin near Bus depot—officials said. A senior district administration official said that they will book the hotel rooms based on the daily arrival of passenger list issued by the bureau of immigration. The activity is likely to continue for the next eight days.

“We cannot book the hotel rooms before their visit. Based on their preference, paid and free quarantine services will be arranged. For paid hotels, the price slab has been fixed ₹1,000 and ₹2,500 per day. For people who want to avail of the free quarantine facility, we have made arrangements at the community centres,” the official said.

Of the 64, 16 are in Hilton Double Tree, three in Best Western Skycity and four in Oyo Dolphin. Twenty-two people have been taken to the Sukhrali community centre and 19 to the Dundahera community centre, which are free quarantine facilities. Free services are mostly availed by students and labourers, according to the official.

Dr Jaswant Singh Punia, chief medical officer, said, “None of the international passengers had ILI symptoms, but as per the protocol, they will be quarantined for 14 days before they leave for their homes. Our medical teams will once again inspect them to check for symptomatic cases. Also, on the last day of the quarantine, we will take swabs of each one of them for the RT-PCR test.”