MARGAO
The Margao railway station, the major railway junction in the State, is in the cynosure of all eyes again. And, the reason is not far too seek.
With Omicron virus raising its ugly head in the neighbouring State of Karnataka, with two cases detected in the State capital Bengaluru, an air of anxiety seemed prevailing amongst the stakeholders, including the pilots eking a living from the passengers.
Their concerns are not entirely misplaced with the Margao railway station connected to major states, bringing hundreds, if not thousands of passengers, every day. A visit to the railway station on Friday morning showed that a mechanism of Covid testing by the state administration since the time of the second wave is still in place.
The Thirvananthapuram-Yeraval Express had just chugged in at the Margao railway station at around 10 am. Soon, one find teams of officials of a hospital, standing at the entrance-exit point to check the passengers whether they have taken both the doses of vaccination or have an RT-PCR test done at the place of their origin.
In fact, passengers while leaving the station premises were found showing their cell phones to prove a point or two to the officials tht they have received both doses of Covid vaccines.
The Goan, however, found that there were many passengers, with luggage sneaking out of the station premises from various points without submitting their details to the hospital officials.
A motorcycle pilot remarked that the administration should plug all the exit points to ensure that every passenger is brought under the scanner of the team that has set up their mechanism at the railway station.
“With Omicron raising its head in the neighbouring state, there should be no laxity on the part of the security system. Every passenger must be checked for the details before being allowed to leave the station”, the pilot added.
When The Goan called up Konkan Railway Corporation Sr official, Baban Ghatge to shed light on the situation at the Margao railway station, he said the mechanism of testing railway passengers set up by the state administration is functioning at the railway station. “The Konkan railway only lends a helping hand to control the rush of passengers and to ensure that passengers do not move out of the station through the exit points without verification”, he said.
He added: “We will check out if the passengers use other exit points to leave the station premises, other than the main entrance and exit point”.
After the end of the second wave, the state administration had outsourced Covid testing at the Margao and other railway stations, even notifying the rates they should charge for testing.
