Travelling to Mumbai? BMC recommends fully vaccinated passengers to be exempted from RT-PCR test

Mumbai, Jul 14: With the reduction in new COVID-19 cases and increasing vaccination coverage, the Brihanmumbai Municipal corporation (BMC) has requested the Maharashtra government to exempt fully vaccinated domestic passengers arriving at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport from carrying RT-PCR test reports.

The government has said that domestic passengers who have been fully vaccinated will not be required to produce COVID test report to enter Mumbai via air.

The BMC had earlier requested the state government to exempt the RT-PCR negative test report stipulation for passengers arriving in the metropolis from within the country if they are fully vaccinated, an official said.

He said BMC chief Iqbal Singh Chahal had written a letter detailing this request to the state government, which is expected to take a call on it soon. The civic body had made a RT-PCR negative report of a test carried out within 48 hours of commencing the journey towards the metropolis mandatory in May this year, he said.

While it was at first applicable to those coming in from Gujarat, Goa, Delhi, Rajasthan and Kerala, all of which had high infection counts at the time, the rule gradually was extended to cover all passengers irrespective of the origin state, the official added.

Chahal, in his letter, said several people were traveling for business purposes to Delhi and other areas and returning on the same day, and in such cases getting a RT-PCR test report in a short span of time was becoming impossible.

The letter said the COVID-19 vaccination drive was underway across the country and many citizens, who are fully vaccinated, have been requesting that the RT-PCR negative test report norm be waived off.