Kolkata airport shut, no flights to Tripura yet

AGARTALA: Airport authorities here on Monday were ready with a bunch of Covid safety norms to resume flight operations which got deferred by three more days due to the closure of Kolkata airport.
Since the decision of airport authorities came late in the night, airlines couldn't intimate the flyers. A large number of passengers had to return from the airport in the morning due to last minute cancellation of all flights to and from Agartala.
As per the announcement, six flights of Indigo connecting Delhi and Guwahati via Kolkata and one flight of Air India between Agartala - Kolkata was scheduled.
According to officials, the MBB airport here is already fully geared up with protocol to operate flights and in order to resolve the accommodation problems of people coming from outside states, all hotels have been opened with certain conditions of Covid safety. CM Biplab Kumar Deb and deputy CM Jishnu Dev Varma have chalked out a standard operating procedure for beginning the service on Monday.
According to the new SOP, thermal screening, random testing and other precautionary measures, which were taken in case of railways, would be put in place. People with a travel history to foreign countries in the last 20 days will be sent to facility quarantine straight away.
People returning within 72 hours will be asked to contact the authorities concerned if they develop any symptom in the stretch of their stay in the state and there will be a surveillance team to track their locations and other specifics. All asymptomatic passengers will have to be subjected to sample tests if they are wiling stay here for more than 72 hours.
As per the protocol of Tripura, all travelers with foreign travel history in the last 28 days, foreign passport holders and having symptoms will be taken to the nearby facility centre for collection of samples from each passenger. They will be kept in facility quarantine till their results come. If a Bangladeshi passport holder is interested in going to Bangladesh through the Akhaura check post, the person will be transported to the Akhaura check-post immediately by a special vehicle against payment and permitted to emigrate to Bangladesh following due procedure.
Asymptomatic passengers having confirmed return tickets within 72 hours of arrival will be permitted to go with the advice that they self-monitor their health and in case they develop any symptoms, they will inform the district surveillance officer. Samples of all asymptomatic passengers, who are not residents of Tripura and are arriving to stay for more than 72 hours, will be collected.
For all other passengers, samples will be taken on random basis for every fifth passenger. After taking sample, the passengers will be asked to self-monitor their health for 14 days and remain in home quarantine. In case they develop any symptom, they will inform the district surveillance officer.