Passengers coming to India will no longer have to fill the self-declaration form

In a significant relief to international passengers coming to India, the Union Health Ministry has removed the provision of uploading self-declaration forms on the Air Suvidha portal. The amended order has become effective from 22 November i.e. today. The Air Suvidha Form was a mandatory self-declaration form to be filled by all international passengers arriving in India, containing information including their current health status and recent travel details.
Most of the conditions at the time of the Corona Pandemic have been removed, but some conditions like filling out the Air Suvidha form were still applicable. Frequent fliers and the travel industry were also demanding the removal of the requirement of filling and submitting the Air Suvidha Form after the mask requirement was removed. In flights going from abroad to India, the airline staff used to check whether this form was submitted along with the vaccination certificate or not.
With the Corona epidemic subsiding, the Civil Aviation Ministry abolished the compulsion of wearing masks on flights and airports in India from 16 November. That is, now there is no fine for not wearing a face mask in flight. It was said in the government order that the use of face masks can be advised in the flight announcement, but the penalty cannot be announced.
The mandatory requirement of masks and air facility forms has been done away with at a time when air travel has reached near pre-Covid levels. Data released last month by the aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) showed that the number of domestic passengers rose 46.54% to 10.4 million in September from a year ago. This is slightly higher than in August.