DIBRUGARH, May 12 - All passengers arriving by the special trains will be subjected to quarantine for 14 or 28 days, as decided by doctors. The special train from New Delhi carrying around 1200 passengers is expected to arrive here on Thursday morning, and the local authorities here are coordinating with the Railways for post detraining health checks and putting the passengers to either camp or home quarantine, depending on the individual health condition of the person.
The Dibrugarh-New Delhi special trains will run daily from Thursday onwards, with stoppages in Assam being at Mariani, Dimapur (Nagaland), Lumding, Guwahati and Kokrajhar. From here, the train will depart from the Banipur station (code: DBRG), and will ply on the Moran- Sivasagar alignment, before joining the main line at Simaluguri. The inaugural train has departed from New Delhi today at 4 pm. The train is basically the Rajdhani Express rake. Passengers have been asked to carry their own linen, and to buy their food from the in-train pantry car, called the �Hot Buffet� coach. As it is a Rajdhani Express train, the fully air-conditioned rake has First AC, Two Tier AC and Three Tier AC class for passengers. The fare does not include food and water.
To be on the safe side, the coach attendants have been instructed to keep the internal coach temperatures �slightly on the higher side� to avoid and flu trigger. This means in-coach temperatures in the 27 to 30 degree Celsius range. The passengers have also been asked to have the Arogya app installed and activated on their mobile phones.
The preparations at Dibrugarh are that detraining passengers of the Dibrugarh district will be directed to their respective Revenue Circle windows for check up and quarantine assistance. The district has seven revenue circles and Dibrugarh city comprises the Dibrugarh East and Dibrugarh West revenue circles. For passengers of other districts, they would be directed to specially set up district-wise help desks. For passengers from neighbouring States, there will be a separate help desk. There will be quarantine camps for every revenue circle of the Dibrugarh district and district/state wise camps for others. Proper sanitization and cleaning of the arriving trains (and the departing trains then onwards) have also been worked out by the railway administration.
To avoid unnecessary crowding of the Dibrugarh (Banipur) railway station, the district administration here will enforce prohibitory orders under Section 144 CrPC around a 200 metre periphery of the vast station complex. However, it is unclear how long this restriction will be maintained as approaches to several residential areas fall in this area, and prolonged restrictions will hugely inconvenience citizens.
Local officials including the DC, SP and their subordinates today reviewed the preparations to receive the passengers, as per the Covid-19 protocol. It is expected that after the first day�s anxieties, the exercises would get streamlined as the days progress. The local authorities today also had discussions with hotel, guest house and lodge owners here to use their premises as quarantine facilities. The owners have assured the administration of their full cooperation and to offer their places as and when any need arises.
