NEW DELHI: About 30,000 air passengers who flew back to India under the Vande Bharat Mission have been granted exemption from institutional quarantine at Delhi airport, said Union Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri on Tuesday.
These passengers, who arrived at Delhi airport between August 8 and September 5, were exempted from the seven- day quarantine as they had a valid Covid-negative test report. Currently, nearly 4,000 passengers are returning on VBM flights every day on various Indian carriers. The minister said that flights under VBM have played a key role in bringing people back home.
“To further streamline the process, exemption from institutional quarantine is being granted on the basis of RT-PCR report,” he added. As per rules in place from August 8, if any arriving international passenger has a negative report from an RT-PCR test done 96 hours prior to the journey, he or she will not need to undergo any institutional quarantine.
At Delhi airport, 29,399 incoming passengers out of a total of 90,843 have been granted this exemption between August 8 and September 5, said Puri. Officials said that the Covid- 19 testing facility at the Delhi airport is handling up to 2,500 samples per day in mid- September and if required, the capacity can later be ramped up to 15,000 samples per day.
The number of domestic and international air passengers has seen a steady rise in the last couple of weeks. “We are close to 50% mark in terms of our pre-Covid daily domestic passenger movement, have operated international flights under VBM which has facilitated more than 15 lakh people since 6 May,” Puri said adding that more people are choosing to fly because of affordable prices, regional penetration, safety precautions, and efficiency.
Under phase six of Vande Bharat Mission which already began from September 1, nearly 1,000 flights from many countries will be operated by the national carrier and other Indian airlines. Over 4.5 lakh stranded Indians have already reached their destinations under the repatriation exercise.