A day after the picture of passengers at Delhi Airport queuing up for COVID-19 test upon arrival went viral on social media platforms, the airport authorities have decided to take additional measures to decongest the premises by adding 20 more kiosks.
A senior official said that they have added 20 more kiosks for the COVID-19 sample collection of passengers upon arriving at the airport.
"The additional 20 sample-collection desks will help to decongest the airport premises. The facility will be available for only passengers who have opted for online booking of COVID-19 test," said the official.
More to the facility, following new guidelines for international arrivals they have also added 600 more seats to the waiting area where travellers can wait till the time their test results come. Initially, there was space for 1,400 passengers. But now 2,000 travellers can be accommodated at a time, he added.
"After several passengers raised payment related issues while booking COVID-19 tests at the airport, we have also added foreign exchange facility to felicitate the process," he added.
A senior airport official said that amid rising concerns over the emergence of the COVID-19 variant Omicron, the Ministry of Health and family has set new guidelines for international travellers that are implemented from December 1 onwards.
The official added that food and beverages wending machines are available at the waiting for a lounge on a paid basis.
The test result for passengers opting for the RT-PCR will be available in 5-6 hours.
And in the case of Rapid PCR tests, the results of tests will be available in two hours.