In his daily press briefing on Thursday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan stated that anyone who wished to enter the state had to show an emergency pass at the state borders.
“With a rise in the number of positive coronavirus cases, we have enforced strict restrictions in the state’s borders. Anyone, even those living in the border districts, need to show an emergency pass issued by the Collector of their respective districts,” Pinarayi reiterated during the press meet.
This clarification follows an issue raised by a Tamil Nadu MLA, who alleged that Kerala was stopping scores of patients traveling from the border district of Kanyakumari to Thiruvananthapuram to avail emergency medical treatment. The patients were being stopped at the Thiruvananthapuram border and made to return to Tamil Nadu, the MLA alleged.
On April 21, the MLA from Kanyakumari’s Colachel constituency also wrote to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami asking the government to intervene and get the Kerala police to allow these patients to cross over to Thiruvananthapuram.
“Most of them (patients) had critical treatment such as heart, dialysis, diabetes etc in reputed hospitals of Thiruvananthapuram such as PRS, Anantapuri, NIMS hospital etc, where they are under medication. Due to the lockdown, people are not able to make their travel to Thiruvananthapuram for critical treatments. Kerala police block them in the state borders,” the MLA, JG Prince wrote to Tamil Nadu CM.
TNM even spoke to one such patient, a 57-year-old electrician with Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB), who has been unable to travel to Kerala’s capital city to get his broken rib treated. The Kanyakumari resident, John Rose, had broken his rib after falling from an electric post in January and has since been receiving treatment at PRS hospital in Thiruvananthapuram. However, he has been unable to travel after being blocked at the Kaliyakkavilai border two times and sent back home by the Kerala police. John had even carried a letter by the MLA of Colachel, asking for him to be cleared at the border as his was a medical emergency.
Speaking to TNM, officials from the Thiruvananthapuram collectorate clarified that an emergency travel pass is required by the people who are looking to travel inter-state or inter-district in order to be cleared at the state and district borders respectively.
“The pass is issued by the Collector of the district you are traveling from. For example, if people are traveling from Kanyakumari, then the District Collector of Kanyakumari will issue the emergency travel pass to them. This is a mandatory document which must be shown at the border in order to be allowed to cross over. In 90 percent of cases, people coming to the border will not have these passes and hence will be asked to return to their home districts,” an official from the Thiruvananthapuram collectorate explained to TNM.
In Kerala, an emergency pass can be applied through the website covid19jagratha.kerala.nic.in. However, the website makes it clear that passes must be applied only in case of ‘unavoidable situations such as medical emergency, death of a relative or an imminent death or any other situation which is unavoidable in nature’.
The application asks details such as district traveling from, local body, name of the applicant, address, a government issued ID proof, purpose of travel, vehicle number, date of travel and time, return date and time, place coming from, destination, route, total passengers in vehicle and names and address of co-passengers.
Applicants have to enclose a pdf copy of the government approved ID proof.
In case the applicant or co-passenger had been under quarantine for COVID-19, a certificate confirming that the applicant does not have the virus has to be furnished at the borders.
“The district medical officer which monitors those under quarantine, will issue these certificates to the quarantined person at the end of the quarantine period. The application form for the emergency pass asks whether the applicant had been in quarantine. If the answer is ‘yes’, then this certificate has to be produced,” the official added.
Further, the state police, excise officials and medical team at the borders in Kerala have been given flash thermometers in order to check the temperatures of people entering the state. Ambulances are also stationed at border check posts. In case a temperature or other symptoms of COVID-19 have been detected in the traveler, then he/she will be stopped from crossing over.
“The person will be sent back to the district where he/she had traveled from in the ambulance,” the official added.