Mamata wants to stop international flights to Kolkata

Kolkata, June 26 To contain the number of increasing Covid-19 cases, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday said that the Ministry of Civil Aviation should immediately stop international flights under Vande Bharat Mission to Kolkata.

"The Centre had initially asked the foreign returnees to go for paid institutional quarantine for seven days. But no protocol is being followed. No checking is happening at the airports. They are all going back home directly posing a threat to various neighbourhoods," she said.

Banerjee, however, suggested that it is okay to allow one international flight to land in the city every month till the situation normalises.

"How do we control the situation then? How can we trace if you can't stop them," she said, adding that there had been a few incidents of foreign returnees who had refused to stay in institutional quarantine after landing back home.

"Such negligence will harm Bengal. This might lead to community spread. We can't allow someone to destroy our efforts. We have not received anything, any help from the Centre to tackle corona, thus will not accept their negligence too," the CM told a press conference. She said her government is trying to manage the situation in Bengal with utmost priority.

Talking about the Trinamool Congress' annual flagship Martyr's Day rally on July 21, she said that the event would be observed this year in a much different way.

"We only organise one big political event every year. This year we will not observe the occasion like previous years. We will hold a meeting on July 3 and make some changes in our programmes this year," Banerjee, who is also the Trinamool supremo, said.

( With inputs from IANS )