Singapore announces vaccinated travel lanes for fully inoculated travellers from India

In a major development for international travellers, Singapore has announced the establishment of Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) for fully inoculated travellers from India with valid entry approvals. The announcement was made on November 15, following discussions between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Singaporean counterpart Lee Hsien Loong, as reported by ANI. The lane which would start functioning on November 29 will allow Indian travellers to enter the island country sans post-arrival tests and home quarantine. The same rules would be applied to people entering Indian territory from Singapore. 

Announcing the creation of VTL, Singapore’s Transport Minister S Iswaran said, “This means that fully vaccinated travellers from Singapore entering India will no longer need to undergo post-arrival tests home quarantine, they will just need to self-monitor for 14 days upon arrival,” said Iswaran.

Furthermore, he revealed that Singapore will, on November 19, upgrade India to Category 2 in its travel advisory. "We are in discussions on the resumption of scheduled commercial passenger services (with India). As today the only flights from Singapore allowed to carry passengers to India are government charter relief flights under the Vande Bharat mission,” the lawmaker said. Asserting that discussions with New Delhi were progressing well, Iswaran said that Singaporean authorities aim to “resume two daily VTL flights each to Chennai, Delhi and Mumbai by Nov 29."

VTLs with other countries

India is not the only country with whom Singapore has established the VTLs. The country would allow non-quarantine travel from  Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) from December 6. Since its initial COVID outbreak, Singapore has been battling a resurgence of the infection, stemming from foreign travellers a majority of whom are workers.  As of now, the country has reported a total of 237,203 cases and 586 deaths in Singapore.

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