No international flights until July 15
Restriction does not apply to cargo operations — DGCA
All international flight operations to and from India will remain suspended till July 15, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said yesterday,
While extending overall suspension of these regular passenger flights to 11.59 pm of July 15, the DGCA said: “International scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case to case basis.”
“This restriction shall not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by DGCA.” it said.
Schedule international passengers flights were suspended on March 22. However, passengers have been flying in and out of India on Air India’s Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) flights and charters operated by foreign countries and now corporates also.
While 510,000 Indians abroad have registered to return home, till now 360,000 have done so under VBM that started on May 6. VBM-4 will kick off on July 3.
Death toll crosses 15,000
The highest single-day surge in Covid-19 cases went past 17,000 yesterday, pushing India’s tally to 509,446, while the death toll climbed to 15,689 with 407 new fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The data showed the daily Covid-19 cases increased by the highest-ever 18,276 cases.
India registered more than 14,000 cases for the seventh day in a row and witnessed a surge of 299,866 infections from June 1 till 26.
The number of active cases stands at 197,840 while 295,917 people have recovered and one patient has migrated. “Around 58.24 per cent patients have recovered so far,” an official said. The total number of confirmed cases include foreigners.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a cumulative total of 7,776,228 samples have been tested up to June 25 with 215,446 samples being tested on Thursday.
Of the 407 new deaths, 192 were in Maharashtra, 64 in Delhi, 45 in Tamil Nadu, 18 in Gujarat, 15 each in West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, 12 in Andhra Pradesh, 10 in Haryana, eight in Madhya Pradesh, seven in Punjab, six in Karnataka, five in Telangana, four in Rajasthan and two in Jammu and Kashmir.
Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand and Uttarakhand have reported one Covid-19 fatality each in the last 24 hours.
Of the total 15,301 deaths reported so far, Maharashtra tops the tally with 6,931 deaths, followed by Delhi with 2,429 deaths, Gujarat with 1,753, Tamil Nadu with 911, Uttar Pradesh with 611, West Bengal with 606, Madhya Pradesh with 542, Rajasthan with 379 and Telangana with 230 deaths.