Inconvenience faced by passengers from Dubai at Mangaluru Airport will not be repeated: DyCM Ashwath Narayan

Bengaluru, May 6: More than a month after international flights have been barred, Karnataka government is preparing to quarantine all 10,823 of the state''s people poised to return home from overseas amid the Covid pandemic, an official said on Tuesday.

"The state has planned to quarantine all 10,823 passengers coming back to Karnataka. The quarantine guidelines framed as below would be applicable," said Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey in a statement.

According to the Government of India, 10,823 Karnataka residents have been stranded abroad by April 30, comprising 4,408 tourists, 3,074 students, 2,784 migrants and professionals and 557 ship crew.

Out of the 10,823 people, the state government is expecting 6,100 to return early as the government has decided to allow Indians stuck abroad to return.

"All the passengers arriving at points of entry (airports and seaports) will be compulsorily screened for symptoms of Covid-19," said Pandey.

Point of entry screening will include self-reporting form verification, thermal screening, pulse oximeter reading, briefing with instructions, categorisation, stamping for some and downloading of Aarogya Setu, Quarantine Watch and Apthamitra apps.

Arriving passengers are also required to declare existing comorbidities such hypertension, diabetes, asthma or any lung disease, organ transplantations, cancer, tuberculosis and other ailments.

Passengers will be categorised into three groups: Category A (symptomatic on arrival), Category B (asymptomatic with co-morbidity or aged above 60 years) and Category C (rest of asymptomatic passengers).

Depending on the category into which the people fall, their quarantine place and time will be determined.

Category A arrivals will be subjected to institutional quarantine for a fortnight, Category B one week quarantine at a hotel or hostel, followed by another week at home, and Category C home quarantine for a fortnight.

Karnataka government is making elaborate arrangements and logistical means, deploying healthcare, police and several other departments into action to handle the huge influx of Kannadigas and state residents.

Pandey has issued a 21-page elaborate standard operating procedure (SOP) guidelines on how to face the international returnees.

The euphoria over the claim that around 3,000 tonnes of gold reserves, worth Rs 12 trillion, have been discovered in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district could not last even 24 hours, with the Geological Survey of India (GSI) clarifying on Saturday there had been no such discovery.

The GSI, headquartered in Kolkata, rebutted the claims of the Uttar Pradesh Directorate of Geology and Mining (UPDGM), and said “miscommunication” must have led to the wrong reporting of facts.

M Sridhar, director general of the GSI, said nobody in the agency gave any such data. He said 52,806 tonnes of gold ore was found in Sonbhadra district during the exploration work in 1998-2000. From this reserve, only 160 kg of gold can be extracted.

“There must have been some miscommunication of facts because of which the gold ore deposits have been overestimated. We have written a letter to Uttar Pradesh (UPDGM), stating the facts. The GSI has not estimated such kind of vast resource of gold deposits in Sonbhadra,” Sridhar said.

ALSO READ: 2,900-tonne gold mine found in Sonbhadra, 4 times that of India's reserves

The UPDGM had said on Friday that gold deposits were found in Son Pahadi and Hardi areas of the district. Sridhar said while gold ore was found in the area during the GSI’s exploration work in 1998-2000, it had told the state government about the discovery in November last year.

Under the new regulation, which came into effect from 2015, the GSI has to inform the state government when ore deposits are discovered. Earlier, no such action was mandatory. In its report, the GSI estimated that only 3.03 gm of gold can be extracted from a tonne of ore. It also clarified that even the extraction amount was tentative and could not be established for certain.

Moreover, Sridhar said the deposits were spread across only 0.5 sq km in forest land, which made the mining of ore economically unviable. “When there are several mines nearby, we can club it into a block and then it makes sense to mine the ore. But in this case, the deposits are too small to make it viable for any company to mine it,” he said. The GSI usually prioritises its exploration work based on the needs of the Centre. While strategic minerals like tin, cobalt, lithium, beryllium, germanium, gallium, indium, tantalum, niobium, selenium, and bismuth are atop the list in GSI exploration, gold is another commodity on its priority list.

According to the World Gold Council, India has reserves of 630 tonnes of gold.

Bengaluru, Jun 10: Internet connectivity, provided under the central government's BharatNet initiative, will be improved in rural areas of Karnataka in the next two to three months, said Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan.

After video conferencing with heads of different agencies and officials, on improving the quality of internet in rural areas, Ashwath Narayan said, "I reviewed the progress of the BharatNet implementation and the steps to be taken to improve the quality of internet connectivity in the next two to three months."

"We also discussed the possibility of giving the implementation of BharatNet to a different agency. We will seek permission from the central government and continue the project. We will ease communication with rural people by ensuring quality and high-speed internet to all Gram Panchayats," he added.

When BSNL officials and other agency representatives who attended the video conference shared their problems, the Deputy Chief Minister assured to solve them through proper coordination.

"Through BharatNet, several government schemes are being implemented in rural areas. Civic service centres are issuing birth and death certificates, Aadhaar cards and social security pensions among others. Of the total 6,000 Gram Panchayats in the state, 4,000 have high-speed internet connectivity, and the remaining will be provided with better internet connectivity through a new agency,'' said Ashwath Narayan.

Additional Secretary (e-governance) Rajeev Chawla, Additional Chief Secretary (IT-BT) EV Ramana Reddy, Principal Secretary (RDPR) Uma Mahadevan, Director (IT) Meena Nagaraj, Collegiate Education Director Pradeep and other senior officials were present in the meeting.