The Assam government is keeping a close watch on Dhubri and Kokrajhar districts, which border West Bengal, and has decided to run random swab tests for Covid-19 on 150 people in Dhubri on Sunday.

West Bengal has so far recorded at least 456 positive cases of whom 15 have died while Assam has recorded 35 positive cases of which one has died. No fresh case was recorded in Assam in the past 24 hours.

Of the 35 cases in Assam, Dhubri has recorded five while Kokrajhar has reported none.

The last positive case in the state was reported from Dhubri. At least four areas of the district have been declared containment zones.

Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said on Friday, “Due to the situation in West Bengal, both the districts have become very vulnerable. Moreover, in Dhubri district, positive cases have been emerging at a regular intervals. Therefore, we have decided to do a random swab test of 150 people from the district to find out the trend in the area.”

The random tests will be conducted in at least four areas of Bilasipara, Chapar and Dhubri town in a “pool” process under the ICMR guidelines in which five samples are tested at one time to get quick results. If any of the sets of samples shows any sign of coronavirus, then each individual of the group will be tested separately. The Barpeta Medical College and Hospital will conduct the tests and depending on the results, the future course of action will be decided, Sarma said, adding that the drive was not being conducted in Kokrajhar it has no case.

He said rapid testing of 91 residents of Spanish Garden apartment here, which was declared a containment zone after one resident tested positive, has been conducted but all the 91 had tested negative on Friday. He said swab tests of 25 of the 91 residents would also be conducted to compare the results with the rapid tests. “If they match, then we will be in a position to start the rapid testing facility in the state as a surveillance tool,” he added.

So far, Assam has tested 6,459 samples for Covid-19.

In the state, 12 districts have reported positive cases. Of these, Golaghat (9) in Upper Assam, Morigaon (6) in central Assam and Dhubri (5), Nalbari (4) and Goalpara (4) in lower Assam, have been identified as “hotspots”. The other seven affected but “non-hotspot” districts are Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj in south Assam’s Barak Valley, Kamrup, Kamrup (metro), Lakhimpur and South Salmara with one case each.

On Friday, the state’s medical college hospitals and all civil hospitals were opened for general patients.

Keeping in view the beginning of Ramazan, the state government has also decided to allow Muslims in quarantine facilities to perform their daylong fasting under doctors’ surveillance.

Inter-district travel

On Saturday, the state government will allow a one-way inter-district travel to more than 12,200 persons stranded within the state to reach their homes or workplaces under the guidelines of the Union home ministry.

The state transport department will arrange buses to facilitate the travel, Assam State Transport Corporation managing director Anand Prakash Tiwari said. All these people were given e-tickets through SMS, mentioning time, date and place of origin of travel.

These people will be allowed to travel only to a destination requested by them and will not be allowed to halt the bus in the middle of a journey and get down.

The government has opened a three-day window, April 25-27, for inter-district travel in Assam so that those stranded can reach their homes safely. So far, 41,000 persons have registered online.

Tiwari said almost all the stranded persons would be allowed to travel and, if needed, the window might be opened by another two or three days. However, people in red zones might not be allowed to come out of the district, he added.

In Dima Hasao, 103 applications were made, of which half were rejected because of wrong destination or night halt requests.

For the district’s stranded labourers, the company concerned or contractors will have to arrange transportation with prior permission from the deputy commissioner within these three-days.

People who have their own vehicles and have applied for e-pass with the district administration of their present location, will be allowed point-to-point movement through direct route without any night stay.

Additional reporting by Mohsin Khaiyam in Guwahati and Suroj Barman in Haflong