Flight catering unit for Mangalore International Airport inaugurated at Kenjar

Bengaluru, Jun 17: Amid rising COVID cases in the past two weeks, the Karnataka government is planning to increase testing capacity to 25,000 samples a day, said a minister.

"Due to increase in cases in the last two weeks, the government is trying to scale up testing to 15,000 to 25,000 samples per day," said Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.

He said people living in crowded places, sanitation workers, street vendors, healthcare workers, police and other frontline staff would be extensively tested.

"It has also been decided to mandatorily test all those who have symptoms of Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI)," he said.

Similarly, all people over 50 with ILI symptoms will be tested.

The health department will also randomly test samples in old containment zones to make sure that the infection is not recurring.

Currently, there are 72 Covid testing labs in the southern state, 41 government operated and 31 private labs.

However, for a few days, the number of Covid tests in the state have plummeted.

On Monday, the health department has tested only 5,362 samples across the state.

Likewise, on Tuesday, only 7,936 samples were tested, diverging from earlier weeks when around 10,000 cases were tested on an average.

In all, 4.57 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 4.39 lakh have tested negative.

Udupi, June 21: A graduation student, who had attempted suicide two weeks ago under depression following the postponement of examinations due to covid-19, breathed his last at a private hospital yesterday. 

The deceased has been identified as Shakuntala, a final year degree student of First Grade College, Muniyal. She was a resident of Mathibettu near Vagranga in Hebri taluk. 

According to sources, she had studied hard to clear the examinations. The postponement of examinations led her to depression.  

She consumed poison at her house on June 8. She was immediately rushed to Manipal hospital where she breathed her last on June 20. A case has been registered in Hebri Police Station. 

Belagavi, Mar 19: South Western Railway (SWR) on Thursday increased the fares of the platform tickets at Belagavi, Hubballi and Ballari.

The rate of platform tickets has been increased to Rs 50 with effect from Thursday till March 31, in order to control the crowding at platforms in view of the coronavirus outbreak.

Belagavi, Hubballi, and Bellari were all big stations and maximum number of people, including both passengers and those there to see them off come or to receive them at these railway stations, a SWR official sources said.