The Corona Prevention Committee of Sharsha Upazilla Administration of Jessore has taken various steps to reduce the suffering and financial expenditure of the passengers who became helpless to return to India after treatment. Arrangements have been made to save the cost of vehicles and hotels including quarantine system in the hospitals for the people suffering from complex diseases. Alerts have also been issued to prevent the entry of outsiders into the immigration broker class.
On Friday (May 7) morning, a notice was seen at the passenger terminal and immigration building at Benapole port.
Rahim, a passenger returning to India, said they would be benefitted a lot from the steps taken by the administration to prevent suffering and harassment of passengers. He called for maintaining this directives during the ongoing crisis.
Mir Alif Reza, president of the Sharsha Upazila Corona Prevention Committee and Upazila Nirbahi Officer (UNO), said banners had been put up at various places at the immigration and port passenger terminals to prevent passengers returning from India being harassed by middlemen. Besides, arrangements are being made to stay in the quarantine of the hospital after checking the papers with the passengers suffering from complex diseases. Passengers have been coordinated with the concerned to save hotel and transport fares. The fare for non-AC vehicles has been fixed at Tk. 12.50 per km and for AC at Tk. 18.50 per km. Hotel owners have been urged to take half of the hotel rent.
Bichitra Mallick, medical officer at the Benapole Immigration Health Department, said 318 people returned from India yesterday. 5 of them were corona positive. They went to India and became infected with corona. The injured passengers have been kept in the red zone of the corona unit of Jashore Sadar Hospital and the general passengers have been kept in various residential hotels in Jashore and Satkhira and those suffering from complex diseases have been kept in the institutional quarantine of the hospital for 14 days. The quarantine cost was borne by the government last year but this time the passengers have to bear it themselves.
Benapole Immigration OC Ahsan Habib said the Bangladesh government had imposed a 14-day travel ban on the Indo-Bangladesh border from April 26 to curb the new variant of the Indian Corona. Of these, no new passport holders have traveled between the two countries. However, those who were stranded between India and Bangladesh before the ban are returning home with clearance from the Bangladesh Embassy in India.