Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal urged the centre to extend the UK flight ban till January 31.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal today urged the centre to extend the suspension of flights to and from the United Kingdom as the country now battles the variant strain of coronavirus first detected there.
"Centre has decided to lift the ban and start UK flights. In view of extremely serious COVID situation in UK, I would urge central government to extend the ban till January 31," Mr Kejriwal tweeted, raising alarm on the fast-spreading strain of the virus, 73 cases of which have been detected in India.
The government on December 23 suspended flights from the UK, with all passengers arriving from there having to be tested on arrival at airports. The suspension of UK flights was later extended it to January 8.
On Tuesday, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said the government has allowed limited resumption of civil aviation with the UK.
Pointing out that the Covid situation in India was brought "in control" with great difficulty, the Chief Minister said, "Now, why lift ban (on UK flights) and expose our people to risk?"
Mr Kejriwal had sounded a similar warning note on UK flights last month too.
Apart from India, the British variant of the coronavirus strain has been detected in Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore so far.
As part of the centre's plan to detendted the mutant strain, the samples of all those who are returning from the UK, found positive in the RT-PCR test, will be genome-sequenced by a group of 10 government labs.