Cold wave grips North India; Delhi records worst fog in 4 yrs, air and rail traffic hit

January 6, 2014

Delhi_records

New Delhi, Jan 6: As cold wave maintained its grip in the North India, Delhi experienced the worst fog in four year, with flight and trains operations coming to a standstill.

Intense cold wave continued unabated in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan with temperatures settling below normal in most parts of North India adversely affecting normal life.

With dense fog enveloping the IGI Airport, the visibility dropped below the mandatory 50 metres, disrupting flight operations and causing inconvenience to passengers. According to reports, as the visibility was below 50 metres, over 200 flights were delayed at the IGI. The fog was being expected to get lesser after 9.30 AM.

Fog started to descend at the airport on Sunday evening at around 6.30 PM and it became dense by 8 PM. The visibility dropped to less than 75 meters due to which flight operations were disrupted, airport sources said. The fog became more dense around 9.30 PM due to which the general visibility was almost nil while the runway visibility was below 50 meters, leading to suspension of flight operations.

The thick fog affected the rail traffic as many trains were running behind scheduled or were cancelled. Chaos prevailed at Delhi railway station as the passengers were stranded waiting for their trains.

According to MeT department, Delhi is witnessing second spell of dense fog since two days and will continue for another 24 hours.

On Sunday, Delhi recorded the minimum temperature settled down at 7.8 degree Celsius, one notch below normal, and the maximum temperature was recorded at 19.3 degree Celsius, one notch above normal.

Dense fog accompanied with biting cold wave conditions disrupted normal life in Delhi.

Besides Delhi, foggy conditions were reported in Lucknow, Jaipur, Bhubaneswar, Vizag, Patna and Guwahati leading to disruption in flight movement.

Kashmir Valley and Ladakh region experienced sub-zero temperatures as cold intensified and mercury plummeted several notches below the freezing point.

Srinagar recorded a minimum temperature of minus 4.2 degrees Celsius, over two degrees down from the previous night's minus 1.6 degrees Celsius, a MeT official said.

Several parts of Punjab and Haryana, including Hisar, Amritsar, Patiala, Bathinda, Narnaul, Ludhiana and Rohtak remained engulfed under a thick blanket of fog due to which several trains criss-crossing the region ran hours behind schedule due to low visibility.

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News Network
March 24,2020

Ahmedabad, Mar 24: The Gujarat police has detained 426 people in the last 24 hours for violating lockdown rules in force in the state to combat the novel coronavirus outbreak, a senior official said on Tuesday.

They include those who came out despite being advised home quarantine, state Director General of Police Shivanand Jha said.

"The lockdown met with around 90 per cent success. We are taking strict measures to implement the lockdown in the remaining 10-15 per cent areas. We have lodged 238 cases related to the violation of police notification and 127 cases related to quarantine rule violation. In all, we have detained 426 persons across the state," Jha told reporters in Gandhinagar.

"For better implementation of the lockdown and to address issues concerning people, we have set up a dedicated 24-hour control room and appointed two additional DGP rank officers to supervise operations. Three teams under them would work to resolve issues across the state," said Jha.

He said police commissioners and districts SPs have been asked to enforce the lockdown in an effective manner.

Essential services like vegetable and milk shops are allowed to remain open, he said, and asked people not to flock in large numbers to such shops.

The state has so far reported 33 COVID-19 cases, and one person has died of the infection.

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News Network
May 22,2020

New Delhi, May 22: Air India on Friday started booking for domestic flights amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

"We have started bookings for domestic flights," said Air India in a statement.

The airlines will operate a total of 8,428 flights each week for the next three months from May 25 to August 25 as the Central government has announced the resumption of domestic flights.

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Thursday said that a minimum and maximum fare for three months has been set for the domestic flight services, which resume from May 25.

In the case of Delhi, Mumbai the minimum fare would be Rs 3,500 for a journey between 90-120 minutes. The maximum fare would be Rs 10,000.

"This is operative for three months -- till one minute to midnight on August 24," said Puri at a press conference here.

Puri said that guidelines have been issued for the passengers and airports, which are to be followed during flight operations.

He also said that self-declaration or Aarogya Setu App status on a compatible device would be obtained to ensure that a person does not have COVID-19 symptoms.

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News Network
March 25,2020

New Delhi, Mar 25: The government is likely to agree an economic stimulus package of more than Rs 1.5 lakh crore ($19.6 billion) to fight a downturn in the country that is currently locked down to stem the spread of coronavirus, two sources familiar with the matter told news agency.
The government has not yet finalised the package and discussions are ongoing between Prime Minister Narendra Modi's office, the finance ministry, and Reserve Bank of India (RBI), said both the sources, who asked not to be named as the matter was still under discussion.

One of the sources, a senior government official, said the stimulus plan could be as large as Rs 2.3 lakh crore, but final numbers were still in discussion.

The package could be announced by the end of the week, both sources added.

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