Indian Passport Holders from EU, Turkey and the UK are now restricted to enter till March-end

With Europe being declared as the new core of the novel coronavirus, the Government of India as a precautionary measure has imposed new travel restrictions for the passengers. Along with the foreign nationals, now, the ban has been imposed on Indian passport holders, residing in the United Kingdom, the European Union and its member countries and Turkey. The ban will be effective from 1200 GMT on 18th March 2020 till 31st, 2020. 

The new travel ban comes as an extension of the recent travel restriction imposed on entry of foreign passport holders and Overseas Indian Citizen (OCI) cardholders into the country starting from Friday last week. Meanwhile, Indian passport holders were allowed to enter India.

Aviation Regulator, Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), said: “Travel of passengers from member countries of the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, the United Kingdom and Turkey to India is completely prohibited with effect from 18th March 2020. No airline shall board passengers from these nations to the country with effect from 1200 GMT on 18th, 2020. The airline shall enforce this at the port of initial departure. Both these instructions are temporary measures and shall be in force till 31st March 2020, and will be reviewed subsequently. ”

The European Union consists of 27 countries, which spread across the whole European continent; European free trade association constitutes four members including Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland. This new ban is said to impact flight operations of many airlines, which will now have to cancel flights into India till the end of March. 

Even before the Government of India has announced its decision to close the country from upcoming Friday and the current ban, several foreign and international carriers had cancelled over 500 flights to and from the country. Apart from this, the government has also expanded the compulsory quarantine – for a period of 14 days – for passenger coming from United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman, Qatar, Kuwait with effect from 122 GMT on 18^th March 2020. 

In the late last week, India had announced a compulsory quarantine of passengers coming from 7 countries that are China, Iran, Korea, France, Spain, Italy and Germany. It had also decided to put them under three categories depending on their health. With this addiction, India has made Indian nationals coming from 11 nations to go through a mandatory quarantine. 

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