Sindh starts COVID-19 testing of Gilgit students before they return to hometowns

The Sindh government said on Tuesday it had started the COVID-19 testing of the Gilgit-Baltistan students studying in Karachi and other parts of the province before permitting them to go back to their hometowns.

Sindh Law and Environment Adviser Barrister Murtaza Wahab, who also acts as the Sindh government’s spokesman, said the coronavirus testing of a batch of 250 students belonging to Gilgit-Baltistan had been started in Karachi.

In this connection, a special makeshift testing facility has been established in the Shah Faisal Colony, District Korangi. The government has been conducting these tests free of charge. The government said the testing of students would be done in different phases.

The students who test negative will be granted a no-objection certificate by the Sindh government to travel back to their native towns. According to Barrister Wahab, the government would do its best to facilitate the students.

Transporters woes

Meanwhile, the Sindh government has given the assurance that it will come up with an assistance package to help out people associated with the transport business who have been hit hard due to the closure of the transport service.

Sindh Transport Minister Syed Awais Qadir Shah assured a delegation comprising representatives of local transporters, the inter-city transport services and the goods’ transport companies in a meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting took into consideration the standard operating procedures to be adopted for the public transport sector for the revival of its operations in the post-COVID lockdown scenario. Such SOPs are necessary for ensuring the best hygienic conditions and social distancing among operators and users of public transport to safeguard them against the COVID-19, the meeting agreed.

The transport minister said the closure of the transport services had become inevitable to slowdown the transmission of the coronavirus as the government had been compelled to take such a harsh decision to safeguard the public health against the threat of the deadly viral epidemic.

He said the government was aware of the issues of the people associated with the transport businesses. Speaking on the occasion, Karachi Transport Ittehad president Irshad Bukhari agreed with the Sindh chief minister’s lockdown policy.