OVERRULED Brakes on global flights

Following Centre’s caution, Public Health Minister Rajesh Tope clarified that '‘a fullyvaccinated local domestic passenger can travel without RT-PCR."

‘’The state government has issued fresh guidelines akin to those of the Central

government. A local/domestic traveller, if fully vaccinated, will be able to travel. There is then no need for RTPCR testing. The travel details of passengers arriving from 'at risk countries will be checked and form them the RTPCR test and 7-day isolation will be mandatory. After that, if their test is negative, they can go to work,’’ said Tope.

Questioned over the need for institutional quarantine, the state government has argued that Covid tests conducted immediately after arrival often returned false negatives, and it was critical to ensure passengers were, in fact, free of infection, before releasing them.

The order mandating quarantine was issued late last night, leading many to question how passengers on flights that had already taken off, or were about to, could revise schedules (and finances, since tests and quarantine will be paid for by the passenger) at short notice.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has said that it will notify its decision in

due course on the date of resumption of commercial flights. It has been nearly 20 months since these flights were suspended.

‘‘The situation is being watched closely," the DGCA circular reads, suggesting that unless there is a perceptible improvement on the ground situation, the decision to reschedule flights stands.

In a recent interaction with ANI, junior minister of Aviation General V K Singh had said that, "there is tremendous pressure from the public to restart scheduled international flights,’’ especially students and professionals.