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| Kashmir quarantine facilities to cost Govt millions | | ‘No takers for proposal to charge moneyed who returned from abroad’ | | Early Times Report
Srinagar, Apr 3: Even as around two thousand people have been quarantined by the government at hotels and other similar facilities in Kashmir, the service is likely to cost the Union Territory around Rs one crore.
Officials said most of those who have been put in quarantine facilities that have been developed mostly at hotels are the students who study in foreign countries but have returned home in the wake of coronavirus.
Officials said given the fact that each such person has to be kept in quarantine for a fortnight and that they have to offered meals as well, the expenditure on them can only run in millions of rupees.
Some of the officials have been of the opinion that the people who have resources to afford costly education aboard should be made to pay for the use of quarantine facility as the same has been developed at hotels.
“These people from abroad who are in quarantines are enjoying facilities of luxury hotels, so why shouldn’t they be made to pay because they are not poor for any reason,” said an official in the civil secretariat on the condition of anonymity.
Officials said the officials in Kashmir was so concerned about giving luxury facilities to such people that even brand new hotels were thrown open for them.
“From bottled water to packed food, everything is free for them. The poor do need such facility for free but why not to charge the rich who come from abroad, so that this money is spent on the needy,” the official said.
Ironically the government is making this expenditure, when the Union Territory is running short of financial resources and the Raj Bhawan has opened a bank account to pool funds from people.
When contacted a senior official confirmed to Early Times that the quarantine facilities will cost “huge money” to government.
Meanwhile the concerned citizens have appealed Lieutenant Governor GC Murmu to look into proposal of charging those who have come back home from abroad and are being quarantined.
“Let the government impound their passports till the payment is made by them,” said a senior official in know of the matter. |
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