Inbound flyers can skip 7-day isolation after online declaration

NEW DELHI: International passengers arriving in India will have to upload a report showing they had tested negative for the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) if they want exemption from a mandatory seven-day institutional quarantine, according to a union health ministry guideline issued on Sunday.

Travellers also need to submit online a self-declaration at least 72 hours before their scheduled travel on the portal www.newdelhiairport.in, the guideline said.

The test should be done using the real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) method, considered to be the gold standard of testing for Covid-19, and conducted no longer than 96 hours before travel.

Since the government started Vande Bharat Mission flights from May 6 to repatriate Indian citizens stranded overseas, the Centre has been allowing passengers to go home straight, bypassing the seven-day mandatory institutional quarantine.

Exemption from the quarantine is meant only for people with compelling reasons including human distress, pregnancy, death in the family, serious illness and for parent(s) with children of the age of 10 years or below.

Top officials involved in the planning maintained that the authorities, especially at Delhi airport, are flooded with a vast number of exemption requests -both genuine and fraudulent — leading to massive crowds at

Delhi airport that result in passengers getting stuck for about 3-4 hours in the triage area.

The officials requested anonymity.

Civil aviation authorities said that earlier this month a young man held up an inhaler to back his claim that he had a “serious disease” to go home.

Another man cited a death in the family to skip institutional quarantine and other passengers in the queue took the lead and made similar excuses to go home, Delhi government officials said.