NEW DELHI: International passengers arriving in India are mandated to declare their health status prior to boarding on the Air Suvidha portal along with required documents including passport copy, Covid negative report from a test conducted within 72 hours of departure and vaccination certificate.
Following reports of heavy crowds at many airports in the country due to the new travel guidelines for international passengers, the government on Tuesday mandated self-declaration on Air Suvidha portal.
Officials said the aim is to provide hassle-free, queue-free, and convenient air travel for passengers arriving in India. To ensure prevention of the Omicron variant, exemption forms from the portal have been discontinued and filling of the details have been made compulsory.
Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday took stock of preparedness, testing capacities and the situation on the ground with regard to crowd management at all airports.
“Have put an action plan with 8 compliances on immigration queues, expanding RT-PCR service providers ramping up help desks and forex counters, along with seamless floor management,” said Scindia in a tweet.
The Air Suvidha portal was launched in August 2020 and has been strengthened to accommodate travel guidelines issued on 30 November 2021.
Air Suvidha is first of its kind digital portal for easing international passenger arrival in India. It has already assisted 2,51,210 passengers.
Meanwhile, the number of COVID-19 positive air travellers who have returned to Mumbai from 'at-risk' countries climbed to 17 on Tuesday with the addition of one more patient to the list, the city civic body said.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said these 17 foreign returnees to the city - 13 males and four females - have tested positive for COVID-19 and have been hospitalized.
In a statement, the civic body said so far nine close contacts of these patients - five women and four men - have also tested positive for coronavirus.
Till Monday, 16 travellers arriving from at-risk countries and their nine close contacts had tested positive to COVID-19.
One more returnee was added to the list on Tuesday, taking the tally to 17, the BMC said.
All coronavirus positive air travellers have been admitted to hospitals and their swab samples sent for genome sequencing to find out if they are infected with the new Omicron variant of the virus, the release said.
Genomic sequencing is a process to decode genes in SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, to help scientists find which variant might be present in swab samples.
On Monday, a 37-year-old man who returned to Mumbai from South Africa on November 25 and his 36-year-old close contact, a woman who landed at the city airport from the US the same date, were found infected with the Omicron strain.
They were the first two cases of the new variant detected in Mumbai.
Maharashtra has so far reported 10 cases of the new variant.
However, no new infection of Omicron came to light in the last 24 hours, the state health department said.
The BMC has been carrying out COVID-19 tests on international travellers who are arriving at the Mumbai airport from at-risk countries to check if any of them is infected with Omicron, classified as a 'variant of concern' by the WHO.
Passengers arriving from these nations, where Omicron cases have been detected, have to follow additional COVID-19 testing and quarantine measures.
Countries in Europe, including the UK, and South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Ghana, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tanzania and Israel have been placed in the at risk category, according to the Civil Aviation Ministry.
According to the Union Health Ministry's guidelines that came into force from December 1 following the emergence of Omicron, all passengers coming from at-risk countries have to compulsorily undergo RT-PCR test and 2 per cent of travellers arriving from other nations would have to take the test on a random basis.
Amid concerns over the Omicron variant, two persons who returned here from the United Kingdom and Canada, respectively, tested positive for coronavirus infection on Tuesday, an official said.
Following the test results, the two men, aged 41 and 42, were isolated and their samples were sent for genome sequencing to ascertain if they are infected with the Omicron variant, the health official added.
On Monday, a 28-year-old German national tested positive for coronavirus infection at Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh.
His sample was sent for genome sequencing, said district contact officer Dr D Mohanty.
As he had attended a marriage ceremony here on Sunday evening, his contact history was also traced and samples of at least 50 people were collected for testing.
The German national arrived here on Sunday from New Delhi and tested negative in Rapid Antigen Test at the airport.
But his RT-PCR test report came out positive the next day, officials said.
So far no case of the Omicron variant has been found in Madhya Pradesh.
A district health official said every flyer landing at Bhopal's Raja Bhoj Airport is being subjected to RT-PCR test irrespective of the vaccination status, and samples are being sent for genome sequencing.
Four more international travellers were on Tuesday admitted to the Delhi government-run Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan hospital's special facility for isolating and treating those infected with the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, officials said.
"There are a total of 30 people -- 25 positive cases and five suspected cases -- at the facility at present. All the four passengers who arrived on Tuesday are Indians," Medical Director of the hospital Suresh Kumar said.
Delhi reported its first case of Omicron on Sunday -- a 37-year-old fully-vaccinated man who arrived in the city from Tanzania.
The man, a resident of Ranchi, travelled from Tanzania to Doha and from there, to Delhi on a Qatar Airways flight on December 2.
He stayed in Johannesburg in South Africa for a week.
He has mild symptoms.
The results of 12 of the 17 samples sent for genome sequencing were released on Sunday, with 11 of those being negative for Omicron.
(With PTI Inputs)