Covid –ve report must for flyers from 5 more cities from April 26

Kolkata: In view of the present Covid situation, the state government has made it mandatory for flight passengers to produce Covid negative reports before boarding the flight from five more cities. This will be effective from April 26 noon.

On Friday, the state government has informed the Civil Aviation ministry that from now on, flight passengers coming from Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh will have to undergo an RT-PCR test and produce a Covid negative report within 72 hours before departure.

Earlier in February, the state government had made it mandatory to produce Covid negative reports for the passengers coming from Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Telangana. According to sources, as the Covid infection in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and a few other states have taken a bad shape in the past few weeks, the step has been taken.

Passengers going to Port Blair, Ahmedabad, Baroda, Surat, Bhopal, Indore, Gwalior, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur and Lucknow need to produce Covid negative certificates before boarding the flights. Though it has been made mandatory that the test should be done within 72 hours before leaving the city, for Port Blair, the time frame has been set to 48 hours before leaving.

Meanwhile, on Friday, the state government has written to the Centre requesting to ensure that oxygen meant for Bengal does not get diverted to other states.