11 May,2020 07:40 AM IST | Mumbai | Prajakta Kasale
The rescuees were thermally screened on arrival at Mumbai's international airport
The first batch of Indians from London arrived in Mumbai at 1.30 am on Sunday. Out of the 329 passengers on the flight, 65 went to Pune, 16 to other districts of the state via State Transport buses. The remaining 248 are staying in Mumbai hotels for at least 14 days.
BMC's Additional Municipal Commissioner P Velarasu said, "No one was found symptomatic among the passengers. The hotel accommodations are available on concessional rates according to the star category."
India began rescue operations on May 7 for thousands of Indians stranded outside the country. The special evacuation flight AI 130 had departed from London on Saturday. "There were 81 passengers from districts like Pune, Amravati, Ahmednagar, Akola, Aurangabad, Beed, and Gondia and to Goa. They were sent home in State Transport buses right from the airport. The rest were from Mumbai," said a BMC spokesperson.
All passengers were asked to download the Arogya Setu app on their mobile devices and thermally screened at the airport. The passengers sent to hotels for 14 days will be tested at the end of the isolation period. If they test negative after 14 days, they will be allowed to go home and must monitor their health for another 14 days. Those who test positive will be shifted to COVID-19 centres.
The civic body has reserved 3,434 rooms for passengers in 88 two/three/four/five-stars and budget hotels.
In all, 14,800 Indians stranded in 12 countries are to be brought back. Of these, around 1,900 will arrive in Mumbai from USA, Bangladesh, Philippines, UK, Malaysia and Singapore. Two more flights will reach Mumbai on Sunday. The flight from Singapore, AI 343, will have 243 passengers and the flight from Manila, AI 387, will have 241 passengers.
Payment blues at hotel
One of the returnees, Varsha Raut, was taken to a four-star hotel where she reached around 2.30 am. However, the hotel asked her to pay for the complete stay in one go, resulting in a night-long hustle. "I went to one of the four-star hotels mentioned in the list. My credit card's validity had ended in April and I only had Rs 15,000 cash at that time. The hotel asked me to pay over Rs 78,000 at the time of check-in itself. There was no online payment available and requests to pay in instalments or in the morning were rejected," Raut told mid-day. She was then dropped back at the airport in the middle of the night.
"The authorities sent me to another five-star hotel, and they too asked for full payment of Rs 70,560 for 14 days. I managed to pay with the help of a relative and got into a room after 7.30 am," Raut said.
Raut said she appreciates the government's work that has been done within a short period. "I think the BMC has not told hotels to take 14 days' payment. It is the hoteliers who are doing it; this is inhuman, especially in these circumstances," she said.
"We haven't received any complaint so far but the full amount need not be paid upfront. It can be paid instalments. We will instruct hotels to offer comfortable instalment options," Velarasu said.
3,434 - No. of hotel rooms reserved by BMC to isolate people
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