Congress bites dust in Udupi dist; BJP sweeps all five constituencies

Mangaluru, June 11: The private flight chartered by Saudi Arabia's SAQCO Contracting Company to repatriate coastal Kannadigas stranded in the kingdom landed at Mangaluru International Airport at 1:15 am on Wednesday.

The flight with 175 passengers took off from the Dammam International Airport around 6 pm (KSA time).

SAQCO’s Directors Althaf Ullal and Basheer Sagar said that all the legal procedures were carried out smoothly before the flight took off from Dammam for Mangaluru.

The duo also informed that no staff or official of SAQCO were traveling on the chartered flight and that it was arranged only for the stranded Kannadigas. The cost of traveling, institutional quarantine, and COVID-19 tests will be borne by the SAQCO Company.

SAQCO had established a desk to finalize the list of passengers who will be traveling on the flight to Mangaluru on Wednesday. The company added priority was given to pregnant women, the senior citizens who had come to the kingdom on visit visas, people with medical emergencies, people who had lost jobs, and those who had reported deaths in their families.

Mangaluru, May 4: No major crowds were seen in the coastal city of Mangaluru today except in front of the liquor shops after the district administration relaxed the lockdown norms for 12 hours a day (between 7am and 7pm).

There was no mad rush of vehicles either on city roads when the relaxed lockdown began. There were fewer people to buy essentials in front of grocery and vegetable shops as they had time till late evening.

There was no let down in the number of police pickets as well as curbs on vehicular movement across the city either. 

The government has allowed sale of liquor in CL2 (standalone wine shops) and CL 11 (MSIL outlets) to mop up revenues when Lockdown-3 commenced from Monday. Compared the other parts of Karnataka, the size of queues in front of liquor shops in Mangaluru were smaller. 

Like other parts of the country, the lockdown was imposed in the coastal district on March 24 to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Prior to that, a curfew was imposed in the district from March 22 midnight. The lockdown did not apply to essential services such as sale of food, groceries, milk, vegetables, fruits, and meat and fish. Gradually the district administration had to intensify the lockdown and allow those shops to remain open only between 7 a.m. and 12 noon. 

With the lockdown relaxation extending till 7 p.m., Mangaluru today witnessed people and private vehicles moving freely in the afternoon for the first time in more than a month. However, only those who had to go for work and do other essential activities were seen on roads. After 7 p.m. movements of all kinds of vehicles will be prohibited. 

The relaxation was to facilitate economic activities that had come to a standstill during the first two phases of lockdown. Mangaluru City Police Commissioner Dr P S Harsha, meanwhile, warned the people against misusing lockdown relaxation and venturing out without any genuine reason.