The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has released a new list of SOPs for 23 countries with an increase in the number of countries in Category ‘C’, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

According to the CAA’s new guidelines, the number of countries in category A has also been increased to 20. Category ‘A’ passengers from Australia, Bhutan, China, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Sri Lanka are not required to take the coronavirus test.

The duration of PCR test for category ‘B’ countries will be 72 hours.

Neighbouring India has been included in the category ‘C’ where travel restrictions have been extended for Indian passengers till April 24.

Pakistan's National Command and Control Centre (NCOC) put a ban on all kinds of travelling from India via air, rail and road amid the exponential rise of COVID-19 cases in neighbouring country India. The NCOC was briefed on the spread of the Indian mutant coronavirus and subsequently, NCOC decided to include India in the Category ‘C’ countries for the next two weeks.

The next meeting of NCOC will be held on April 21 to review the Category ‘C’ countries.

It may be mentioned that India is in now in the grips of a public health emergency and India social media feeds are full with videos of Covid funerals at crowded cemeteries, wailing relatives of the dead outside hospitals, long queues of ambulances carrying gasping patients, as per the international media.

Earlier, CAA had introduced fresh measures making it mandatory for all passengers travelling to Pakistan to submit complete information through “Pass Track App” as part of the continuing measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 in the country.

Read More: NCOC imposes new strict SOPs to tackle coronavirus till April 11