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Coronavirus update: India unveils rules for flights to ferry stranded foreigners, release of quarantined people
If the evacuation requests are endorsed by the external affairs ministry, chartered flights will be arranged by the foreign governments in consultation with the civil aviation ministry.
The government on Thursday announced new rules allowing flights to evacuate stranded foreign nationals and the release from quarantine of people who arrived in the country after February 15 and had tested negative for Covid-19.
The new rules unveiled by the home ministry followed restrictions imposed on all international flights and rules requiring the quarantine of all people entering India at government or private facilities.
The rules, which were conveyed to all states in a notification, state the external affairs ministry will examine on a “case to case” basis all requests by foreign governments to evacuate their nationals stranded in different parts of the country due to the current 21-day lockdown.
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If the evacuation requests are endorsed by the external affairs ministry, chartered flights will be arranged by the foreign governments in consultation with the civil aviation ministry.
Before their departure, the foreign nationals will be screened for Covid-19 symptoms. “Only those foreign national(s) would be allowed to leave who are asymptomatic for Covid-19,” according to the standard operating procedure (SOP) for evacuation of foreigners.
“In case of symptomatic person(s), the future course of treatment would be followed as per the standard health protocol,” the SOP states.
Embassies will have to arrange local transport to ferry their nationals to airports and transit passes for such vehicles will be issued by state governments.
The SOP for release of people quarantined after returning from abroad since February 15 state they will be released if they test negative. “However, this will not apply to a group, where even one person tests positive for Covid-19,” it states.
The transit passes for people released from quarantine will be issued by state governments and they will have to undergo home quarantine for 14 days as a “measure of abundant caution” on reaching their destination.
According to several estimates, countries such as the US, the UK, France, Germany, Israel and Russia are engaged in hectic efforts to evacuate more than 20,000 of their stranded nationals from different parts of the country.
The Germany embassy has evacuated some 2,400 stranded travelers, including nationals of other European countries, in the past few days and flew out 600 more on two flights on Thursday.
The US embassy has said it will have several evacuation flights from New Delhi and Mumbai from this weekend. The UK high commission has also asked its nationals to register for evacuation flights that expected to begin in the next few days.
People familiar with developments said Air India is expected to operate flights from Mumbai and New Delhi to London between Saturday and Tuesday.
