Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that he needs more time for preparations to resume domestic air travel in Maharashtra in view of the rising coronavirus cases in the state.
"Today morning, I spoke to civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri and requested him to give us some time to do preparations to resume domestic air travel," Thackeray said.
It is to be noted that all domestic flight services are set to resume in India from May 25, i.e. Monday. Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh said that the reopening of airports in red zones was "extremely ill-advised".
Taking to his official handle on Twitter, the Maharashtra Home Minister posted a series of tweets opposing the move and explaining his stance.
"It's extremely ill-advised to reopen airports in the red zone. Mere thermal scanning of passengers inadequate w/o swabs. Impossible to have autos/cabs/buses ply in current circumstances. Adding positive passenger will add COVID-19 stress to red zone," posted Anil Deshmukh on Twitter.
In another tweet, he said, ''Getting passengers to come from a green zone to a red one putting them to risk of exposure doesn't make sense. Keeping a busy airport up & running with all COVID-19 safety measures will need huge staff presence and compound risk in the red zone.''
Thackeray also said that lockdown may not be over by May 31 as the deadly virus shows no sign of stopping, with the number of infections rising at a tremendous pace.
"We can't say that lockdown will be over by 31st May. We will have to see how we will go forward. The coming time is crucial as the multiplication of virus is picking up. I want to assure the medical fraternity that we are with them in all ways," Maharashtra Chief Minister said.
He said that the fight against COVID-19 is going to be very tough, adding that people don't need to panic as adequate health facilities have been arranged to tackle the problem.
The positive COVID-19 cases have crossed 47,000 in the state. The number of active patients is 33,786 and over 13,000 have recovered.
