Quarantine is must, says Maharashtra; Centre takes up the issue

Maharashtra has come out with its own set of guidelines for airline travel including one-week institutional quarantine for people arriving from "at risk" countries amid growing concerns about the highly infectious Omicron variant of coronavirus. The rules also include mandatory RT-PCR tests for all arriving domestic passengers, even those who are vaccinated.

Karnataka earlier mandated RT-PCR tests for all arriving international passengers and home quarantine even if they tested negative. It rolled back those rules on Wednesday evening to align its mandate with the Centre's. This is after country's health secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote to states to not issue separate rules as they will create confusion among flyers.

"Passengers coming from risk countries...shall compulsorily undergo institutional quarantine for one week" starting 11:59 pm of December 2, Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) said in a circular on Wednesday.


The passengers also have to undergo RT-PCR tests at the airport of arrival and then on the second, fourth and seventh day of arrival, it said.

The Centre's new rules mandate passengers from "at risk" countries to upload negative RT-PCR test results and their 14-day travel plans on the state-run Air Suvidha portal. They also need to undergo a test upon arrival in India. There is no quarantine mandated by the Centre.

The risk countries include UK, South Africa, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel.

The Maharashtra government had earlier set the institutional quarantine mandate from 11:59 November 30, but later deferred it by two days.