Rohit Kumar
Port Blair, 8 May 2021
Migrant workers who have already booked their flight tickets to travel to their respective states especially West Bengal are facing a lot of issues these days at Port Blair because of non-availability of RT-PCR testing for them.
These migrant workers were seen knocking on every door this Friday, to get themselves tested because the state of West Bengal has made it mandatory for the air travellers to carry RT-PCR negative test report not older than 72 hours.
RT-PCR testing is not being allowed for these migrant workers because of the limited testing capacity available in the Islands. If RT-PCR testing for inter-state travel is allowed by the A & N Administration it would affect the much required tests for Islanders.
Apart for cancelling their travel plans these migrant workers have another option of travelling to West Bengal and then spending 14 days in institutional quarantine at their own cost.
At this time when the COVID-19 cases are increasing everywhere in the country, these migrant workers wish to go back to their homes to be with their families.
Andaman and Nicobar Islands have no private testing labs to conduct RT-PCR tests and the Govt. Labs can only test a finite number of samples per day, which is the reason why it very difficult for A & N Administration to provide RT-PCR testing for inter-state travel.
Recently ICMR in its latest advisory on COVID-19 testing for the second wave, has recommended removing the need for RT-PCR test in healthy individuals travelling inter-state.