Mumbai Airport issues new guidelines for passengers from 'at-risk' countries

The Maharashtra government has directed the Mumbai airport to advise all domestic airlines that passengers should compulsorily have a negative RT-PCR certificate.

“In exceptional cases like family distress, testing may be allowed on arrival at the Mumbai airport,” government said.

Maharashtra has also said that travellers arriving in the state from `at-risk countries’ would have to undergo mandatory seven-day institutional quarantine.

“Such passengers will also undergo RT-PCR test on the second, fourth and seventh day of the arrival,” the authority said in its latest guidelines.

If a passenger is found positive, he or she would be moved to a hospital, and in case they test negative, they will have to undergo seven-day home quarantine.

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The Centre has slammed the Maharashtra government’s order for mandatory quarantine of passengers, and said that many passengers had already finalised their travel plans and had already started their journey and hence would not be aware of the new rules.

“It is considered necessary to give some time to the passengers from risk countries to plan their travel in view of the Maharashtra government orders,” said the Centre’s note.

“To avoid major inconveniences and also to recast their travel plans, a window of two days will be given to all passengers from risk countries,” the government said.

After the Centre’s instruction, the state has now revised that rule and said that it would be applicable from 11:59 IST on December 2.

Also read: Maharashtra makes state quarantine must for all travellers from ‘at-risk’ countries

There is also a debate between Maharashtra and the Centre over the RT-PCR test and home quarantine even for passengers who are not from ‘at risk’ countries.

According to the updated list released by Union health ministry, the countries designated as ‘at-risk’ include the European nations, the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel.

Meanwhile, a 60-year-old man, who returned to Pune from Zambia through Mumbai, has tested positive for COVID-19 and has been kept in home quarantine. The taxi driver who drove the man from the airport tested negative for COVID-19.

More than 1,000 travellers have landed in Mumbai in the last fortnight from African countries, where the more transmissible Omicron variant of coronavirus has been detected.

“Swab samples of at least 100 travellers were collected out of the 466, whose list was received so far,” Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporations Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani told PTI on Monday.