New guidelines for international passengers arriving in Mumbai

International passengers arriving from or transiting through the United Kingdom, Europe, Middle Eastern countries, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe will now have to take a mandatory self-paid RT-PCR test on arrival at Mumbai.

International passengers arriving from or transiting through the United Kingdom, Europe, Middle Eastern countries, South Africa, Brazil, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, and Zimbabwe will now have to take a mandatory self-paid RT-PCR test on arrival at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA), Mumbai. This new rule comes into effect from the midnight, September 3. The cost of the test will be ₹600.

The capacity of testing at CSMIA has been increased to 600 tests per hour for International passengers. (HT FILE)

The capacity of testing at the airport has been increased to 600 tests per hour and requisite arrangements have been made for implementation of the guidelines.

International passengers travelling from the United States or other countries except the ones mentioned above who will exit at the Mumbai airport or will take a connecting flight will have to produce a negative RT-PCR report, done within 72 hours before the journey.

The statement was released by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Wednesday, as per guidelines issued by Government of India for international passengers. The decision has been taken in view of more transmissible variants of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

While institutional quarantine is not required anymore as per the new guidelines, all international passengers must give a self-declaration form with an undertaking to home quarantine for 14 days. These forms need to be submitted to officers deployed at CSMIA.

Exemptions granted as per earlier guidelines for fully vaccinated passengers or passengers above the age of 65 years has been done away with.