Filling self-declaration form via the app made mandatory for passengers
KATHMANDU, MARCH 15
Filling digital form on India's Aarogya Setu app has been made mandatory for Nepal-India bilateral flights.
Nepal Airlines Corporation and Air India have stated that the mandatory provision for digital form has been implemented in coordination between the two countries. As per the notice issued today by NAC, every passenger flying on the Nepal-India-Nepal route must download the Aarogya Setu app on their phone and fill the self-declaration form via the app.
Aarogya Setu is an Indian COVID-19 'contact tracing, syndrome mapping and self-assessment' digital service, primarily a mobile app, developed by the National Informatics Centre under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology of India.
According to the Air Bubble Travel Agreement between India and Nepal, flag carriers of both the countries are operating one flight daily.
For both the destinations, NAC has stated that the PCR negative report should be uploaded within 72 hours along with the self-declaration form through the 'Air Subida' portal (Indian portal). Passengers are also required to submit the RT-PCR negative report in original and a printed copy of the self-declaration form at Tribhuvan International Airport before they are allowed to board flights.
From now on, physical self-declaration and RT-PCR report will not be accepted by Indian Authority. NAC has stated that this rule has been issued to maintain passengers' details more effectively.
After around nine months of hiatus, Nepal-India flights were resumed on December 16. NAC said that the number of passengers on Nepal-India flights was quite high these days, whereas the number of flights was limited.
A version of this article appears in the print on March 16, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
