Business travellers to Jammu and Kashmir having valid credentials and a confirmed return ticket booking within four days of arrival will be exempted from institutional quarantine but will have to maintain details of people they meet during their stay, officials said on Sunday.
The Union territory administration issued an order on relaxations and exemptions from compulsory institutional quarantine for various categories of travellers arriving in J-K by air, rail or other means of transport, they said.
Pregnant women in their last trimester with a doctor’s certificate of pregnancy, cancer patients on chemotherapy, chronically ill or organ transplant, IVF patients discharged from a hospital after a surgical procedure, dialysis patients with a doctor’s certificate of being on dialysis, mothers with infant below one year and children below 10 years travelling alone without a family member would continue to avail exemption of institutional quarantine on their arrival, the order issued by Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam read.
The order said all these people would be sampled on their arrival for RTPCR testing and sent to home quarantine for 14 days, and if their reports are positive, they will be brought to a COVID hospital for recovery and treatment.
The order said there would be no change with regard to personnel of defence and the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF).
“The personnel of defence and CAPF returning to duty, including transit labour hired by Border Roads Organisation to go to Ladakh, are exempted from compulsory 100 per cent RTPCR testing and administrative or institutional quarantine in any facility authorized by the government.
“They shall be allowed to proceed to the institutional quarantine of their respective units or formations for necessary quarantine as per their internal procedures,” the order said.
It further said the exemption from administrative quarantine was also extended to travellers arriving by air or rail on business or industrial visits, with a confirmed return air or rail ticket booking within four days, a hotel reservation and a business identity card.
The same applies to business travellers coming by road and having a confirmed hotel reservation, a business identity card and an undertaking to return within four days.
“Business travellers to J&K on business or industrial visits, with a confirmed return air ticket booking, confirmed hotel reservation and a business Identity, will proceed to their hotel from the airport and restrict their interactions to the business purpose for which they have come.
“They will however be sampled on arrival for RTPCR testing and if their test result is positive, will be brought to a COVID hospital for isolation, recovery and treatment. They shall also be required to maintain complete details of the persons whom they came in contact with during their stay in J&K,” the order read.
In addition, the order said central government employees on bona fide government duty, ambulance drivers returning to J&K after dropping off patients outside the UT, passengers and travellers with a negative certificate of RTPCR test from an ICMR-approved laboratory or testing facility, not older than two days from the arrival date, would not be subjected to institutional quarantine as well.