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Manipur seeks passenger flights halt to clear backlog of tests

By Correspondent

IMPHAL, June 16 - The Manipur Government has urged the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation to stop all passenger flights to the State for a period of 10 days in order to clear the pending backlog tests on returnees, to prevent community spread of COVID-19.

Manipur Chief Secretary Dr J Suresh Babu has written a letter to the Centre in this regard, sources said.

Stating that the Manipur Government is following strict quarantine protocol for all people arriving in the State, the letter said, �All of them have to undergo RT-PCR test mandatorily and only those tested negative are allowed to go for home quarantine.�

Due to heavy inflow of people, there has been substantial delay in testing all the returnees and there is a large backlog of 15,000 samples, the results of which are pending, the letter said.

As a result, the State Government seeks a halt to all passenger flights for 10 days in order to clear the pending tests and also to decongest the quarantine centres, the letter added.

Urging the Union Ministry of Civil Aviation �to stop all passengers� flights to Imphal from 18-06-2020 to 28-06-2020,� the Chief Secretary also requested issue of necessary instructions to all airlines, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Airport Authority of India in this regard.

Since the resumption of flight services on May 25, hordes of people have arrived in the State. Earlier, thousands of people of Manipur, who were stranded in other parts of the country due to the nationwide lockdown, returned to the State in buses and special trains.

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