The Indian government on Friday decided to impose reciprocal travel curbs on British visitors arriving in India from the UK, with effect from October 4.
As per the new rules mandated by the government, all UK nationals travelling to India will have to compulsorily need to undertake RT-PCR test 72 hours prior to their departure. Besides, they will also be required to take COVID-19 test on arrival and 8 days after landing.
In addition to this, a 10-day quarantine is also made mandatory for the flyers from the UK at home or the destination address, regardless of their vaccination status.
Earlier today, a senior official of the Home Ministry was quoted as saying by news agency ANI that the Indian government has decided on ‘reciprocal treatment’ to the applicants under new visa conditions.
As per the decision, the visa facilitation will be incumbent on the applicant’s home country’s policy for Indian tourists. The official said that to settle issues arising out of such a situation, a meeting was convened last week that was attended by representatives from all concerned agencies.
“In the meeting, it was decided to provide reciprocal treatment to tourists visiting India. Many countries have opened for tourists from foreign countries but have posed several restrictions for Indian travellers. The issues have been raised with the diplomats of concerned countries to get issues resolved,” the official said.
The decision came in the wake of the United Kingdom’s move to not recognise vaccination certificates issued by CoWIN platform in India. Earlier, the UK govt had refused to consider Covishield at par with AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, despite being the same vaccine made in India. After India lodged a strong objection, UK had later accepted Covishield as an approved Covid-19 vaccine. But the requirement of 10-day quarantine for travellers from India had remained even if travellers are fully vaccinated, as the UK had refused to accept the vaccination certificates issued by India.
As a result, as warned by India earlier, the Indian govt has introduced reciprocal measures for UK residents visiting India. India had said that it has the right to impose reciprocal measures if the UK does not address concerns over the new travel rules relating to Covid-19 vaccine certification.
