Ninety-five buses that had started off from Rajasthan’s Kota two days ago, reached West Bengal on Friday with 2,368 students who live in various parts of the state.
State home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay took to Twitter on Thursday to announce that the state government was bringing back the students. They had been stranded in Kota due to the ongoing country-wide lockdown to contain Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19).
The buses stopped at two transit points in the state. Those with students from Malda and north Bengal moved towards Siliguri and the buses with students from other parts of the state stopped at Asansol-Durgapur transit point in West Burdwan. The students were sent to their homes in separate buses in groups.
Thirty-one buses reached Siliguri carrying around 900 students. The rest reached Asansol-Durgapur transit point in 64 buses. WhatsApp groups were created by authorities to track the students’ requirements where each group had students of 10 buses. The authorities made arrangements for food on their way.
The students were screened for COVID-19 before boarding the buses. All of them were screened again after reaching Bengal. If anyone is found to have fever or any other symptoms, they will be taken to quarantine centres. All of them will be kept at home quarantine for prescribed number of days even if they don’t show symptoms. Their health will be monitored regularly by district health officials.
All district magistrates were asked to make necessary arrangements for reaching students to their respective homes. A nodal officer is supervising the entire process.
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