The government of Assam will be issuing permits after the withdrawal of the lockdown to the people stranded outside Assam in a phased manner so that the movement of suspected novel coronavirus (COVID-19) infected persons can be monitored.

Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that since a huge number of people are stranded or are willing to come back to Assam, the step to issue passes or permits have been initialized. As there are very few quarantining facilities in the state, the government by issuing permits in a phased manner can monitor the people coming from other places to Assam and required medical facilities can be provided to them without hassle.

He added that if a huge number of people arrive in a single day, it won’t be possible for the government to handle them all at once and so in the phases, a maximum of 5000 persons will be allowed to enter.

By Wednesday the final decision will be taken by the government and a website along with an app is expected to be launched for applying the permits.

Entry points might also be introduced by the government for regulating the movement and track of the number of people entering.

The minister added that it is not restricting people from entering their own state but keeping track of the facilities, the government is just rationalizing the movement of the people. Along with this, people living in other states in North East and will necessarily have to go through Assam will be given transit passes. These people will not be allowed to stop in Assam and the authorities will have full rights to question such people stopping in Assam.

So far Assam has recorded 26 confirmed cases while several samples are still in processing. The minister hoped that if the people maintain all the norms of the lockdown, the cases might not be in huge numbers. The government is taking all measures to keep things under control.

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