Aarogya Setu app for air travel: When it is mandatory, when it isn't

The Indian government has relaxed the norms for downloading the Aarogya Setu app for the citizens in the fourth phase of the Covid-19 lockdown in the country. While the app is no longer mandatory for employees working in industries, it remains compulsory for people travelling via the railways. Now, the government has issued fresh guidelines on the usage of the Covid-19 contact tracing app for air travel.

As per the new guidelines that were shared by the Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri, the Aarogya Setu app is mandatory for all international arrivals. This means that all travellers from a foreign country, be it Indian citizens or foreign nationals, have to download the app on their smartphones.

“Only for exceptional and compelling reasons such as cases of human distress, pregnancy, death in family, serious illness and parents accompanied by children below 10 years, as assessed by the receiving states, home quarantine may be permitted for 14 days. Use of the Aarogya Setu app shall be mandatory in such cases,” the Ministry of health and family welfare wrote in its guidelines.

As far as domestic air travel is concerned, the app is no longer mandatory for the travellers. The Home Ministry in its guidelines said that all the passengers will be ‘advised’ to download the app on their smartphones. However, they may choose not to do so. “All passengers shall be advised to download the Aarogya Setu app on their mobile devices,” the guidelines state.

It is worth noting that the new guidelines are also applicable for domestic train and interstate bus travel, which means that it is not mandatory for train and bus passengers to download the Aarogya Setu app.