K’taka Covid guidelines confuse international travellers

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Experts have said that the travel guidelines from the Union Health Ministry and the Karnataka government for passengers from six countries are different, which has led to confusion among foreign travellers. These guidelines have been levied on those travelling from China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.

The guidelines that came into effect on Sunday, provided by the Health Ministry, state that passengers from the six countries must upload a negative RT-PCR report. This report must be conducted 72 hours earlier to travel and uploaded on the government’s Air Suvidha portal.

“This will also apply to transiting passengers through the (six) countries… irrespective of their originating country,” a letter by Lav Agarwal, the additional health ministry secretary said on Monday.

A random sampling of two percent of all international travellers is also specified in the guidelines provided by the ministry, including those from the six countries. On the other hand, the directions provided by the Karnataka government on December 31 state that asymptomatic passengers from the six countries must “strictly remain in home quarantine for the next seven days”.

According to the state government guidelines, symptomatic passengers entering from the six countries will be quarantined at specific government or private medical facilities. Further, samples for RT-PCR tests and genome sequencing will be collected from them. These guidelines came in two days after the guidelines from the Centre.

Experts have said that these differences in the guidelines will lead to confusion among international passengers and have urged the states to follow the Centre guidelines to maintain uniform guidelines and avoid unnecessary panic. While Bengaluru has many international travellers, it is similar to other metropolitan cities like Delhi or Mumbai.

The guidelines issued by the Karnataka government tend to make the scenario difficult for those travelling for short durations for business purposes. While it is good to take precautionary measures, uniform guidelines are necessary to keep the environment calm, experts say