Bangladeshis who need to visit India for medical treatment are facing trouble due to travel restrictions amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Published : 02 Sep 2020, 09:26 PM
The High Commission of India in Dhaka is issuing some visas based on urgency, but making the journey amid the restrictions is leaving the patients and their families worried.
Those who had secured medical visa earlier also require special permission via email.
Imran Hossain, who works at a private bank, took his sister to Mumbai for cancer treatment before the lockdown.
Her last two-monthly therapy session was held in February and the next one was scheduled for April, but their visas were suspended in March when India suspended medical and other visas.
Now Imran has secured special permission for the visa from the high commission, but he is scratching his head: how will he take his sister to Mumbai?
The visa will expire after three months and they can use it for a single entry while the duration had been one year with multiple entries earlier, Imran said.
It has thrown his plans in chaos as they now must return after one therapy session while it would be better for them to stay there until the next session was over.
“We will need visas again on return. I'm worried about what might happen,” he told bdnews24.com.
He is planning to travel to Kolkata by road via Benapole Land Port and then catch a flight to Mumbai.
“We'll be able to cross immigration with COVID-negative certificate, but I don’t know what will happen after that. I'm not sure whether we'll need to be in quarantine for 14 days after crossing the border or after reaching Mumbai,” Imran added.
Arohi Aria, who had been taking treatment for her gynaecological complications in India since 2018, is not as fortunate a Imran’s sister.
Arohi has been trying to reach the high commission via email for 20 days, but has not heard back. “I'm not sure whether I will get a response from them,” she told bdnews24.com.
Many Bangladeshis frequently travel to India for treatments that are not available in Bangladesh.
The number of such patients went up in past few years after India had eased visa rules, but the pandemic has disrupted the process.
India suspended almost all visas except diplomatic, official, UN or international organisations, employment, and project visas in mid-March due to the pandemic. It has also extended a ban on international passenger flights until Sep 30.
The measures have restricted access for many Bangladeshi patients, who had been receiving treatment in India, to get drugs. Some of them are trying to get the medicines from online marketplaces.
A spokesperson for the High Commission of India in Dhaka told bdnews24.com that they were granting visa on the merit of urgency, but not for all types of treatment.
The applicants also need to visit the high commission if their email applications are granted.
More than 3,500 Bangladeshis travel to India daily on an average. Over 10 percent of them travel on medical purposes.
Out of the foreigners who visit India for medical purposes, 45 percent are from Bangladesh, according to the India-Bangladesh Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
More than 13.7 million foreigners took treatment in India between January 2018 and March 2019. They include 2.8 million Bangladeshis.
Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen asked his counterpart Harsah Vardhan Shringla last month for urgent resumption of visa services at the high commission, particularly since many Bangladeshi patients need to visit India for critical and emergency medical treatment.
Masud appreciated India’s efforts to ease curbs on travel between the countries through the introduction of “air bubble” flights, proposed by Indian sid.
The high commission spokesperson said discussions between the governments over the “air travel bubble” were ongoing and that a decision would be made soon.
India has created bio-secure air travel bubbles with the US, France, Germany and the Maldives.