‘Covid bus’ on tour of temple towns

‘Covid bus’ on tour of temple towns

Ishita.Mishra@timesgroup.com

Dehradun:24.03.2021 

Twenty-two passengers of a bus, travelling from Gujarat, tested positive for Covid-19 in Rishikesh on Monday night. The bus, on a 15-day North India trip, boarded mostly by elderly women, travelled to Jaipur, Pushkar, Mathura and Haridwar before reaching Rishikesh where the health department conducted their tests after a few showed symptoms of the virus.

Not only that, the health department officials said they were finding it difficult to trace the tourists in question as they had all provided wrong phone numbers. As a result, there is no information on whether they have been hospitalised or isolated.

Tehri additional chief medical officer Jagdish Joshi said the bus was stopped near Muni Ki Reti on March 18 where a health team screened the passengers.

When TOI contacted Mahesh Bhai, owner of the travel agency that booked the 50 passengers from various villages of Gujarat, he said, “We started on March 7, covered Ambaji temple in Banaskantha district of Gujarat, Jaipur, Pushkar and Mathura. We reached Haridwar on March 18, where the tourists wanted to take a holy dip in Ganga. We were scheduled to return on March 20, but with two days still in our hands we visited Neelkanth Mahadev temple in Rishikesh,” said Mahesh, and added that he had personally called all the 22 people and asked them to either go to hospital or get themselves isolated at homes.

He also claimed that every passenger had a Covid-negative certificate when they began the journey.