The Central government has decided to impose a mandatory 10-day quarantine on British nationals arriving in India, with effect from 4 October. The decision was taken as a reciprocal measure over UK’s similar travel restrictions on Indian residents.
Our new regulations will come into effect from 4 October and will be applicable to all UK nationals arriving from the UK, top sources in the government told CNN-News18 on Friday.
According to the sources, “Regardless of vaccine status, arrivals will have to undertake three COVID-19 RT-PCR tests – within 72 hours before travel, on arrival at the airport, and on day 8 after arrival, and mandatory quarantine at home or in the destination address for 10 days after arrival in India.”
The UK government has faced intense backlash over its refusal to recognise visitors as vaccinated unless they received their COVID-19 vaccine shots in a handful of select countries.
The recently-released UK travel rules mandate that only people who have got both shots of a double-dose vaccine such as Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna or the single shot Janssen vaccine “under an approved vaccination program in the UK, Europe, US or UK vaccine programme overseas” will be considered fully vaccinated.
Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla had called the rules “discriminatory” and warned that “reciprocal action” may be warranted.
After making several appeals to the UK authorities, India will now implement the following rules for all UK nationals arriving in India. They are:
1) Pre-departure COVID-19 RT-PRC test within 72 hours before travel
2) COVID-19 RT-PCR test on arrival at airport
3) COVID-19 RT-PCR test on day 8 after arrival
4) Mandatory quarantine at home or in the destination address for 10 days after arrival in India
UK travel guidelines for Indians
Last week, the UK in its revised travel guidelines included Covishield in the list of its approved vaccines but did not give approval to CoWin certificate which testifies the vaccination status of someone who has received the jab in India.
This in return will put fully vaccinated Indians travelling to the UK to the status of unvaccinated travellers and will have to undergo quarantine in the nation.
The two sides announced “progress” in recognising each other’s certificates after high-level talks, which was attended by National Health Authority chairman RS Sharma and UK high commissioner Alex Ellis.
Media reports said India is mulling to add the date of birth on the vaccine certificate for people travelling abroad. However, the “reciprocal” move indicates that the issue over Covishield may not be resolved.