WEB DESK
The ban on passenger flights to Kolkata from six cities, which are Covid-19 hotspots—has been extended till August 15, after West Bengal recorded a surge in patients in the state, NSCBI Airport authorities said on Thursday. The West Bengal Additional Chief Secretary (Home) also wrote to the Secretary, Ministry of Civil Aviation to extend the ban on passenger flights to Kolkata till August 15.
“The restriction on arriving flights to Kolkata Airport from 6 cities i.e Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Chennai, Nagpur and Ahmedabad has been extended up to August 15, 2020,” the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport authorities said in a tweet. Earlier today, the NSCBI airport in Kolkata had announced that there would be no flight operations on lockdown days.
Earlier, the ban on passenger flights from these six cities to Kolkata had been in place till July 31.
Over the last few weeks, West Bengal has recorded a surge in the number of Covid-19 cases it has added daily. On Thursday, the state’s Covid-19 case count shot up to 67,692 with a record 2,434 fresh cases, the state health department said.
With 46 new fatalities reported on Thursday, Bengal logged the highest number of single-day deaths till date, pushing the death toll to 1,536.
The number of active coronavirus cases currently stands at 19,900.
In the last 24 hours, 2,140 patients have recovered from the viral disease, improving the discharge rate to 68.33 per cent, according to the health department’s data.