Tourism Ministry asks all states & UTs to waive off RT-PCR for fully vaccinated travellers

In a move to facilitate travel across India, the Tourism Ministry has asked all Union Territories and the states to remove restrictions, if any, for the fully vaccinated travellers.

Reportedly, this is the second time the Ministry has written to the states to remove the need of RT-PCR negative certificates for fully vaccinated travellers at entry points. As per the Ministry, fully vaccinated travellers, on production of their valid final vaccination certificate, should be allowed to proceed to their respective destination without any hassle.

As per the latest reports, the Ministry has sent an official letter to tourism secretaries of all the Union Territories and states. It has urged authorities to take urgent measures in consultation with concerned departments at the state level to relax restriction on movement of fully vaccinated travellers and the requirement for producing an RT-PCR negative certificate for such travellers.

As per the letter, it is important for them to take confidence building measures to revive tourism activities in those respective regions. It added that as the country has managed to cross the desirable vaccination threshold of 50 crore, all the regions need to contemplate on how to facilitate travel for people.

In a related development, the Union Health Ministry has also categorically stated that no direction was issued from the Ministry at any point of time during the pandemic to use RT-PCR certificate as a tool for permission for travel across India.