Uncertainty dogs commuters but Delhi’s borders stay open for now

NEW DELHI: Traffic moved smoothly at some of the 29 border points in Delhi while intermittent checking was conducted at some others on Tuesday, a day after the Delhi government put stringent curbs on interstate travel for a week to protect the city’s health care resources as Covid-19 cases crossed the 20,000-mark.

On Tuesday, Delhi reported 1,298 Covid cases with the total tally reaching 22,132. Eleven more people died over the last 24 hours, taking the toll to 556, according to the Delhi government’s daily bulletin. The average number of daily new cases in the last week has been 1,095 and the Delhi government has been taking several measures to augment bed strength across hospitals and medical institutions.

Senior Delhi Police officers said their personnel were briefed not to “unnecessarily harass anyone” and “allow Delhi residents to enter the Capital after seeing their residential proof”.

Many regular commuters Hindustan Times spoke to said that their travel to Delhi from Ghaziabad and Noida was smoother than what they had experienced in the past few weeks despite curbs imposed by the district administrations of the two Uttar Pradesh cities.

A Delhi government spokesperson said, “The Delhi government had sent the order to seal all borders to the Delhi police. It is now the job of the police to enforce it. The Delhi police is not under us.”

At the Guru gram border, there was no restriction on the Delhi side as commuters, including officer-goers, drove across without any checking by the Delhi Police staff.