Changes made to electronic permit system

By Azernews

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan has made changes to the SMS permit system introduced during the two-week coronavirus lockdown.

From now on, response to SMS messages of citizens who request permission to leave their homes, will be sent within 15 minutes instead of 1 minute, the State Agency for Provision of Services to Citizens and Social Innovations reported on June 25. Residents send free SMS to 8103 to obtain permission to leave their homes.

Response to messages by mobile application "E-T?bib" will be sent within 5 minutes.

According to the information, some citizens, abusing the rapid receipt of responses to appeals (99.4 percent of appeals for 1 minute), send a text message not when leaving the house, but when approaching a police checkpoint.

So far, 3,475,000 SMS have been sent by citizens to the short number 8103 to get permission to leave the house, of which 774,000, or 22 percent, did not receive a confirmation answer due to inappropriate content.

Changes have also been made in rules of wearing masks. As of June 25th, bus will not be allowed to leave the bus stop unless all passengers wear a face mask, head of the Baku transport agency’s press service Mais Agayev told.

Azerbaijan first introduced quarantine regime on March 24, and on June 18 decision was taken to extend special quarantine regime until August 1.

On June 18, Cabinet of Ministers announced decision to impose a two-week strict quarantine regime.

It should be noted that under the new lockdown rule, citizens are allowed to leave their place of residence only after obtaining SMS permissions. In the positive response SMS message it is indicated the time during which the permit is valid.

Operation of shopping centers, restaurants, cafes, beauty salons, as well as museums, exhibition halls, sport and beaches was also suspended until July 5.