Youngsters from the five States in south India, as many as 117 of them, who were pursuing their masters course in various subjects in Rome, Italy, crossed over into Telangana on Monday afternoon on their way back home. They, however, had to wait for clearance from the Telangana government for transit entry into the State for over eight hours.
The students had been brought to India by the Union government on March 22 and had undergone 30 days of quarantine at a centre maintained by the Indo Tibetan Border Police in New Delhi. They also underwent three tests for COVID-19 infection in Rome as well as New Delhi before being permitted to go home in different destinations.
Nidheesh Chandra, from Kottayam in Kerala, who is a Masters student of Mechanical Engineering in the famous Sapienza University of Rome (SUR), recalled the scary days of the spread of COVID-19 in Italy. “Rome was much better when compared to the northern parts of that State,” he observed.
Ragesh Ramakrishnan from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, a student of Space and Astronautics department also in the SUR, said the Indian Embassy had to get a doctor from India to conduct tests on about 264 students. Nakeertha Raghunath from Warangal in Telangana was happy to be going home after a prolonged period of isolation but showed no hurry.
Vignesh Sairam from Tiruchy in Tamil Nadu, who is studying Mechatronics revealed that the students had to fund their own travel from Delhi. Each of us is paying about ₹ 8,000 per head on an average for transport, he said.
The youth were, nevertheless, unable to understand why there was such a long delay in allowing the buses carrying them at the inter-State border of Telangana and Maharashtra at Penganga river bridge on NH 44. The delay was because of the delay in approval from the State Secretariat in Hyderabad.
