India To Impose Reciprocal Curbs On UK. Testing, 10-Day Quarantine Mandatory From Oct 4: Report

India's reciprocity will reportedly come into force from October 4, the same day UK's new travel rules come into effect.

New Delhi: India is reportedly set to impose reciprocity on British nationals under which UK nationals arriving in the country from Britain will have to undergo mandatory quarantine at home or in the destination address for 10 days after their arrival. 

The step is likely to be taken in response to the United Kingdom’s new travel rules wherein Indian travellers, even those who have received both doses of the Covishield vaccine, will be considered unvaccinated. 

According to a report, the reciprocity will come into force from October 4, the same day UK's new travel rules come into effect. 

“New regulations will come into effect from October 4, and will be applicable to all UK nationals arriving from the UK," a source said, as quoted by news agency ANI. 

According to it, from October 4, all UK nationals arriving in India from the UK, irrespective of their vaccination status, will have to undertake pre-departure COVID-19 RT-PCR test within 72 hours before travel, RT-PCR test on arrival at airport and RT-PCR test on Day 8 after arrival. 

“UK nationals arriving in India from the UK will have to undergo mandatory quarantine at home or in the destination address for 10 days after the arrival,” the source said, as quoted in the report. 

It was also informed that authorities in Health and Civil Aviation ministries will be taking steps to implement the new measures. 

UK's “Discriminatory” Travel Rules

This comes as India had last month stated that it will be within its rights to take reciprocal measures against UK's “discriminatory” move to recognise AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine but not Covishield if the issue is not resolved in a satisfactory manner.

Even as the new British rules state that AstraZeneca Covishield is among vaccines that qualify as approved, India is not yet on the list of 17 countries mentioned, ANI reported. 

The ‘changes to international travel rules’ state that formulations of the four listed vaccines, such as AstraZeneca Covishield, AstraZeneca Vaxzevria and Moderna Takeda, qualify as approved vaccines. 

However, as per to the new British rules, travellers will qualify as fully vaccinated if they have taken full course of the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna or Janssen vaccines from a relevant public health body in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan or the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

As previously stated, India does not feature in the list of countries.