Coronavirus pandemic has hit hard the tourism industry in Himachal Pradesh. Hoteliers have been demanding further relaxations in rules and conditions for entry and stay in the hill state. Following which the Himachal government has released an SOP to be followed by the hotels & guest houses.
The government has given more relaxations in conditions for outsiders entering the state yet tourists are not keen to visit Shimla, Dharamshala & Kullu Manali.
Mandatory stay reduced
The SOP has reduced the mandatory stay from 5 days to 2 days.
No covid test
COVID test for children below 10 years of age is not required if accompanying adults have a negative test report not older than 96 hours.
TRU NAAT & CB NAAT allowed
Tourists will be given entry to the state even if they have obtained a COVID-19 negative certificate through TRU NAAT and CB NAAT tests. Earlier, only RT-PCR was allowed.
No quarantine for drivers
Besides this, drivers who come only for the purpose of dropping the tourists and return the same day won’t be quarantined.
In case any guest is found COVID positive, then the room occupied by him will be sealed for 24 hours.
People in favour of regulations
The people in hill state are not in favour of opening borders completely but want proper regulations and monitoring of outsiders.
There has been a recommendation to have a separate category of applications under the ‘tourist category’, which must be dealt with within 24 hours. failing which it will be deemed to have been approved.
15,432 applied on the portal
According to news reports, total of 15,432 persons had applied for entry into the state yesterday on the Covid portal. Out of these, 10,311 had been given permission. 18,511 applications under different categories for entry into the state are pending for approval. This was due to non-mentioning of certain details like dates, address, place they are coming from, etc. Solan district has received the highest number of applications(3418) for getting entry into Himachal. It is followed by Una, Kangra, Shimla & Sirmaur.
Source: SOP, The Tribune
