Flights will remain suspended at the Calcutta airport on Saturday and the other days Bengal will be under total lockdown, the Centre has decided following a communication from the state government that flights are not under the exempted category.

“We have received communication from the Airports Authority of India headquarters that flight operations on the lockdown days will remain suspended,” said Kaushik Bhattacharya, the director of the Calcutta airport.

Airlines said the state government should come out with a list of total lockdown dates to ensure passengers are not harassed.

The Mamata Banerjee government has announced that the state will come under lockdown twice every week as a precaution against Covid-19.

“Flights and trains have not been exempted from the lockdown. We have requested the ministry of civil aviation and the railway board not to operate flights and trains to and from Bengal on the days the state will be under complete lockdown. This is posing a barrier to achieving the target of breaking the chain of Covid-19 spread. It is also creating trouble for the passengers. We are still awaiting any intimation from the authorities concerned,” a state government official said on Friday evening.

Sources at Nabanna said the decision to write to the civil aviation ministry and the railway board was taken after it was found that hundreds of people from other states entered Bengal on Thursday through flights and special trains.

“It was observed that there was no health screening of the passengers at the airport or railway stations in the state. This could derail our efforts to achieve the target,” another official said.

Sources also said the social distancing norm took a hit as arriving passengers boarded the limited number of buses at stations and the airport.

“We had to arrange a few buses at the airport and railway stations when we came to know the services were not suspended on Thursday (the first of the latest series of lockdowns). But people could not maintain social distancing because of lack of enough transport options. The Centre should help us in all possible ways to contain the spread of Covid-19 in Bengal,” said an official.

Around 45 flights are scheduled to take off from Calcutta and a similar number to land on Saturday and Wednesday, the next two lockdown days. Airlines started sending messages to passengers on Friday afternoon, informing them about the cancellations of the flights.

Several airlines urged the government to announce the list of lockdown days. “If the dates are announced for at least the next few weeks, passengers will plan their trips accordingly. Otherwise, there will be confusion and harassment,” said an official of a private airline.

“We will intimate the civil aviation ministry and the railway board about the dates of complete lockdown as and when the government takes a decision. We expect that trains and flights will be kept suspended on those days,” a state government official said.

Park Street resident Reema Wadhwa, who was stuck in Calcutta for several months, had to rebook her ticket for a fourth time now because of the cancellation of the flights on Saturday.

After flights from six cities, including Delhi and Mumbai, to Calcutta were stalled by the Centre following a request from the state government till the end of this month, Reema booked IndiGo tickets to Lucknow for herself and her husband. From Lucknow, they would have driven to Delhi.

“We had to again cancel our tickets. It’s very frustrating,” Reema said on Friday.

Your guide for Saturday

What: Complete lockdown

Where: Across Bengal

When: Saturday, 6am to 10pm

Police: Out from 5.30am

Who can be out: No one, except in case of an emergency, or those engaged in essential services listed by the state

Essential services

• Health services including movement of health personnel or patients by private/public vehicles
• Medicine shops and pharmacies
• Police stations, courts, correctional services, fire and emergency services
• Electricity, water and conservancy services
• Continuous process industries like steel plants and industries with in-house workers
• Agriculture operations, tea-garden operations in field
• Inter-state and intra-state movement of goods
• E-commerce, capital and debt market services as notified by SEBI
• Print, electronic and social media
• Home delivery of cooked food

Not on the list of exemptions

• Milk supply, cooking gas delivery, flights

Also in place: Restriction on movement of individuals between 10pm and 5am every day