COVID testing at airports: What are Fast PCR assessments and why is there an unlimited discrepancy in costs charged at totally different airports?

By | December 12, 2021

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Fast RT-PCR assessments at airports: The coronavirus pandemic has made it a routine for passengers to get examined at airports. Nonetheless, India’s airports vary from state-run to privately managed and with this comes selection within the prices of the Fast RT-PCR assessments being carried out at such airports. A lot of the main worldwide airports, nevertheless, are managed by personal entities, translating to worldwide arrivals having to shell out extra for the take a look at, in keeping with a report in IE. The Fast PCR take a look at on the Kozhikode airport in Kerala, for example, prices travellers Rs 1,580. Alternatively, Hyderabad and Mumbai airports are charging practically 2.5 instances that – Rs 3,900. What’s extra is that in Hyderabad and Mumbai, the state governments needed to intervene to cut back the associated fee from earlier Rs 4,500, citing overpricing.

For many who won’t know, whereas a traditional RT-PCR take a look at takes as much as 8-10 hours to point out outcomes, a Fast PCR take a look at reveals the leads to 1-2 hours.

Whereas many of the airports are working with a single vendor for conducting the assessments, airports like Mumbai have such exorbitant charges despite the fact that they’ve a number of distributors. In Delhi, a traditional RT-PCR take a look at prices Rs 500. Alternatively, the price of Fast PCR assessments is Rs 3,500.

It’s notable right here that in India, over half the worldwide visitors arriving in India is seen on the Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru airports. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) knowledge for October revealed that collectively, 12.23 lakh worldwide passengers out of the whole 22.22 lakh that visited India that month, flew into one among these 4 airports. Alternatively, Kozhikode witnessed 1.45 lakh worldwide passengers, Chennai noticed 1.57 lakh passengers, 34.076 passengers arrived on the Kolkata airport, whereas 9,565 passengers got here in on the Goa airport.

However again to the exorbitant costs. Why are privately run airports charging a lot? Nicely, one of many causes is that the operators at personal airports are accumulating 30-35% income from the assessments. Alternatively, airport operators at government-run airports are foregoing their share of the income.

The report has additionally cited an airport operator official as saying that whereas the worth of the conventional RT-PCR take a look at is about by the federal government, Fast PCR assessments’ prices have been determined by the laboratories conducting them.

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