Students in Italy fear situation might get worse

JAIPUR: Around 85 Indian students stranded for a week in the university town of Pavia in north Italy’s Lombardy region, which has reported 17 coronavirus deaths over the past few days, have sent an SOS seeking evacuation at the earliest. Some of these students were booked on flights to India that got cancelled in the wake of new coronavirus cases being reported in Italy Panic among the students has escalated since a non-teaching faculty member of the University of Pavia’s engineering department tested positive for coronavirus. Around 15 other staff members have been quarantined.Half of us had booked tickets to return to India, but flights are getting cancelled every day and new tickets are prohibitively expensive,” Ankita KS, a student from Bengaluru pursuing a degree in international business and entrepreneurship, told TOI over phone. “Grocery shops here are fast running out of stocks. We fear the situation might get worse and, therefore, request the government of India to step in.”Of the 85 Indian students stuck in Pavia, 25 are from Telangana, 20 from Karnataka , 15 from Tamil Nadu, four from Kerala, two from Delhi and one each from Rajasthan, Gurgaon and Dehradun. Around 65 of them are studying engineering.Industrial automation student Purushoth Kumar Madhu is scheduled to fly out to India on March 10, but uncertainty over whether the flight will operate is making him jittery. “I am told most flights through the Gulf are being cancelled. Indians being quarantined on arrival at Indian airports for 10-15 days is another concern,” he said.