Centre may announce relaxation on "many things" after May 17: Yediyurappa
Bengaluru: With lockdown-3 coming to an end in a couple of days, Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Friday expressed confidence about the Centre announcing relaxation to "many things" after May 17.
"After May 17, the government of India is going to relax so many things, let us wait for it," he said in response to a question from reporters here.
"According to me they (centre) will relax everything....
maybe for things like five star hotels and others they may not give permission for the time being, but for other things they are going to give permission.
Let's wait and see."
The nationwide lockdown was initially imposed from March 25 to April 14, then extended to May 3 and again to May 17 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Karnataka Tourism Minister C T Ravi on Wednesday had hinted at the state government permitting opening of gyms, fitness centres and golf courses, also certain hotels for local tourism purpose after May 17, when the third phase of the COVID-19 induced lockdown comes to an end.
The Muzrai department (in charge of administration of temples) was also planning to have a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in place, that needs to be followed at temples once they are opened for the public, officials have said.
They said opening of temples for public is however subject to the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) guidelines.
During the recent videoconferencing Prime Minister Narendra Modi had with Chief Ministers of various states, Yediyurappa had proposed doing away with district wise colour-coding and instead advocated strict cordoning of containment zones to control the spread of the pandemic.
He had pitched for resuming all economic activities in stand-alone establishments, while continuing the restrictions on malls, cinema halls, dining facilities and establishments with centrally controlled air-conditioning.
The CM had suggested that 50 to 100 meters around known clusters be declared as containment zones and commercial activities, including public transport, to be allowed in non- containment zones.
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Indigo cancels 67 flights from multiple airports due to bad weather, operational issues
Mumbai (PTI): Domestic carrier IndiGo on Thursday cancelled 67 flights from multiple airports due to "forecasted" bad weather and operational reasons, according to the airline's website.
Of the 67 cancelled flights, only four were for operational reasons, and the rest were due to "forecasted" bad weather at various airports, including Agartala, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Varanasi, Bengaluru, among others, as per the website.
Aviation regulator, DGCA, has announced the period between December 10 and February 10 next year as the official fog window this winter.
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As part of the DGCA fog operations (CAT-IIIB) norms, airlines have to mandatorily roster pilots who are trained to operate in low-visibility conditions, as well as deploy a CAT-IIIB-compliant aircraft fleet for such operations.
Category-III is an advanced navigation system that empowers an aircraft to land under foggy conditions.
Category-III-A is a precision instrument approach and landing that enables a plane to land with a runway visual range (RVR) of 200 metres, while Category-III-B helps in landing with an RVR of under 50 metres.
IndiGo, whose operations are under DGCA monitoring after the cancellations of thousands of flights early this month, is already operating a curtailed schedule in compliance with the government's order.
Under its original winter flight schedule, the airline was permitted to operate 15,014 domestic flights per week, or about 2,144 flights per day, roughly six per cent higher than the 14,158 weekly flights it operated during the summer schedule of 2025.
However, after the massive disruptions, which saw the airline cancelling 1,600 flights on a single day on account of new rest norms for pilots, which allow more rest to the pilots, the government cut down the airline's domestic flight schedule by 10 per cent or 214 flights per day.
As a result of that, IndiGo can't operate more than 1,930 flights per day on domestic routes under its current winter schedule.
The Rahul Bhatia-controlled airline cancelled thousands of flights between December 1 and December 9 on account of a lack of proper planning, and crew shortage in implementing the new set of regulations for pilots' duty period and rest, which were put in place from November 1, thereby causing severe hardships to lakhs of air travellers.
Following this, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) formed a four-member panel, comprising Joint DG Sanjay Brahamane, Deputy Director General Amit Gupta, senior Flight Operations Inspector Kapil Manglik, and FOI Lokesh Rampal, with a mandate to identify the root causes of widespread operational disruptions at the Rahul Bhatia-controlled domestic carrier.
The panel, which has already grilled IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers and Chief Operating Officer Isidre Porqueras as part of its probe, is expected to submit its report by this week.
Meanwhile, IndiGo, in a travel advisory on X, said, "Low visibility and fog over Bangalore has impacted flight schedule. We are keeping a close watch on the weather and doing our best where you need to be safely, smoothly".
Reacting to the advisory, an aggrieved passenger, in an X post, said, "My flight on December 20 from Bhubaneswar to Ahmedabad got delayed for more than five hours, and today my return flight from Ahmedabad to Bhubaneswar also got delayed more than three hours with the same excuse as bad weather. I am travelling with my senior citizen parents, and this delay is not acceptable. Need proper explanation, along with compensation".
