Udupi: All 18 test negative for COVID-19 after Thekkate petrol bunk incident

Mysuru, Feb 26: The Pre-University Education Department was taking several measures to prevent paper leaks during the II PU examinations, scheduled to commence from March 4, a statement said on Tuesday.

Among the few measures that the board has chalked out, students would not be allowed to leave the examination hall till the last bell. In case of any emergency, the student could leave the exam hall but s/he would be required to surrender the question paper to authorities in the hall.

This is being done to ensure question papers aren’t circulated during exam hours by those who exit the hall before the last bell.

Mangaluru, Jan 1: Led by two local MLAs belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party, dozens of people today forcibly stopped toll fee collection at Talapady toll gate on the outskirts of the city allowing vehicles plying between Karnataka and Kerala on the national highway 66 to travel without paying any fee for some time.

Mangaluru City South MLA D Vedavyasa Kamath and Mangaluru City North MLA Y Bharat Shetty, who led the workers, said that the Navayuga Udupi Tollway Pvt. Ltd. (NUTPL), the concessionaire of the about 90-km-long highway widening project between Talapady and Kundapura in Karnataka, had failed to complete the project since over a decade.

The service roads and two flyovers under the project remained uncompleted. Hence motorists were facing a hardship. Notwithstanding Nalin Kumar Kateel, Dakshina Kannada MP, arranging ₹56 crore loan to the NUTPL through Axis Bank to complete the prominent Pumpwell flyover in the city, the company had failed to complete it.

The MLAs said that they stopped the toll collection as a symbolic protest to bring pressure on the company to complete the project within this month.

The BJP workers who gathered near the toll gate around 7.30 a.m. forcibly removed the barricades and made the vehicles ply without paying the fee. The workers of the company managing the toll booth did not resist.

The BJP workers said that vehicles would ply without paying toll till about 6 p.m. If the company resumed the collection during the day on Wednesday, the party workers would again forcibly stop it on Thursday, they said.

Shivaprasad Rai, in-charge of toll collection of the company at Talapady, Hejmady and Sasthana on the same highway told The Hindu that the NUTPL collected about ₹7 lakh as toll fee daily at Talapady from over 12,000 vehicles. The loss on Wednesday could be about ₹4 lakh.

The project is being implemented under build, operate and transfer basis.

Mangaluru, Mar 12: Deputy Commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh on Thursday said that the test reports of the 35-year-old passenger from Dubai have shown no signs of either Coronavirus (COVID-19) or H1N1.

In statement issued here Ms Rupesh said that the passenger has now been discharged from the Bantwal hospital. He has been asked to stay at home quarantined for the next 14 days.

The passenger, who had been diagnosed with fever after he arrived at the airport from Dubai on March 8, had left the Government Wenlock Hospital in the early hours of March 9 refusing to undergo tests.

Later, he was traced and admitted to the hospital in Bantwal and his throat swab samples had been sent to Viral Research Diagnostic Laboratory (VRDL) in Hassan Institute of Medical Sciences.

Meanwhile, throat swab samples of six patients were also found negative for COVID-19.

As many asf 49 people were under quarantine in the district of which five have completed the 28-day cycle.

All passengers arriving by international flights and those in contact with them should voluntarily report to the district health team and undergo self-quarantine for 14 days. If there were symptoms of cough, cold and fever, they should undergo tests for COVID-19. If the reports were positive for COVID-19, then they have to stay in the isolation ward of the Government Wenlock Hospital or in the seven select private hospitals for 28 days.

Screening facility at the airport has been strengthened by posting doctors from seven private medical colleges on rotation basis. These doctors would be in addition to the medical officer at the airport. An ambulance has been placed at the airport exclusively to shift people to the hospitals, she added.

The State government has issued a notification on Wednesday authorising Deputy Commissioners to get the affected admitted by force, if necessary.