BMC Requests Maha Govt Exempt Fully Vaccinated Domestic Passengers From Carrying RT-PCR Report

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.

Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation on Tuesday requested the Maharashtra government to exempt fully vaccinated domestic passengers arriving at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport from carrying RT-PCR (Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction) test.

Seeing the rise in cases during the second wave, in May 2021, the civic body had made an RT-PCR negative report of a test carried out within 48 hours of commencing the journey towards the metropolis mandatory.

According to a PTI report, an official 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 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.

“There are many passengers who are taking up a journey to Delhi and other places for business purposes in the morning and returning on the same day or the next morning… in such cases, conducting RT-PCR test and getting the report becomes impossible," Indian Express quoted the letter. 

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.

Walk-in vaccinations for emergency travel 

The BMC on Tuesday also extended COVID-19 vaccination for people travelling abroad for higher studies or work and athletes participating in the Tokyo Olympics to six days i.e Monday through Saturday, earlier it was restricted to three days a week.

This concession of three additional days will be applicable till August 31, the civic body stated in a release.

The civic body has also reduced the gap between two doses of the Covishield vaccine for students going abroad and brought it down to 28 days from 84 days.