E-Paper
Proposals sent to Saudi Arabia, 9 other nations for air bubble agreement: Scindia
India has sent a proposal to 10 more countries, including Saudi Arabia, for operating flights under the air bubble agreement, Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said on Thursday.
New Delhi India has sent a proposal to 10 more countries, including Saudi Arabia, for operating flights under the air bubble agreement, the Union government told Parliament on Thursday. India currently has such agreements with 31 countries.
“We have 10 proposals pending for the air bubble agreement. We have forwarded the proposals to these countries. Saudi Arabia is one of them. We are waiting to hear from them,” Union civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said in a reply to Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) MP ET Mohammed Basheer’s question in the Lok Sabha.
Also Read | India has discussed air bubble with Saudi Arabia: Government
International passenger flights are currently being operated in a restricted manner under bilateral air bubble arrangements with various countries.
While the Centre had recently decided to resume normal international flight operations from December 15, the plan had to be postponed amid fears over the new variant of coronavirus, Omicron.
Also Read | India defers resumption of international flights with an eye on Covid variants
“We are making all efforts to normalise the situation but due to Omicron, currently we have our air bubble agreement with 31 countries and we have sent proposals to 10 more countries to have the bubble agreement,” Scindia told the Lower House on the fourth day of the ongoing winter session of Parliament.
“Omicron is certainly a setback because all countries across the world need to be safe and secure. That is our first priority and, therefore, different countries have put in place different yardsticks. I think, the yardstick that has been put in place by our government by putting 11 countries marked as ‘at risk’ and testing them completely is the right way to go,” Scindia said while replying to the Congress’s Manish Tewari.
The 11 countries marked as ‘at risk’ are the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel.
The minister also said that the government has begun monitoring the situation at airports across the country and is prepared to fight the new Covid variant.
“We have commenced testing for all arrivals from yesterday (Wednesday). Passengers have to undergo seven days’ home quarantine and then get tested on the eighth day. They will be monitored for another seven days and then they are free to move around. We are fully prepared and are ready for the war against the virus,” Scindia said.
“Our estimate is from these 11 ‘at risk’ countries around 11 airports have arrivals and 17 airports are not at risk. Our study says that around 8,500 passengers arrive from those 11 airports and so we have made available RT-PCR as well as rapid RT-PCR tests for passengers. Around 5,500 tests were done at 36 airports on Wednesday,” he added.
Minister of state, civil aviation, (Gen) VK Singh said 7,900 employees in domestic aviation had lost their jobs in a year between March 31, 2020 and March 31, 2021 due to Covid-19. Around 13,300 employees in ground handling activities also lost their jobs during the same period, however, 380 additional staff were hired in the cargo area, Singh said while replying to Biju Janta Dal (BJD) MP Bhartruhari Mahtab in the Lok Sabha.
Singh also informed Parliament that the Airports Authority of India (AAI) was working on a project of a facial recognition technology (FRT)-based biometric boarding system as part of the first phase of Digi Yatra Implementation at four airports, including Varanasi, Pune, Kolkata, and Vijayawada.
FRT has not yet been introduced at any of the airports in India and the proposed Digi Yatra Central Ecosystem is planned to go live in March 2022, he added.
.
