SINGAPORE — There are about 25 arrivals from India to Singapore daily, of whom the “vast majority” are returning citizens and permanent residents, and some 180 departing passengers on flights back to India.
Both arriving and departing passengers travel on flights chartered by the Indian government.
The transport, foreign affairs and manpower ministries gave these details in a joint statement on Sunday (May 23) in response to media queries.
In their statement, the ministries said that India has banned all international passenger flights between Singapore and India since March last year. Currently, Singapore Airlines, the national carrier, can only operate cargo flights to India.
“The Indian government also allows those who need to return to Singapore to take the outbound (chartered) flight because these are the only available passenger flights into Singapore.
“These flights are operated only by Indian carriers designated by the Indian government, with the approval of the Singapore Government.
“Currently, all such flights operate out of Terminal 1,” said the ministries in their statement.
The ministries said that all the arriving passengers at Changi Airport have to take two Covid-19 tests on arrival — the antigen rapid test and the polymerase chain reaction test.
They are escorted from disembarkation through to their dedicated transport to go to the stay home notice facilities for 21 days, said the ministries.
Earlier this month, the administrators of Facebook and Instagram pages Singapore Incidents were issued a correction direction by the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (Pofma) office.
The video showed a large group of travellers from South Asia arriving at Changi Airport and had a watermark stating the date as May 5, implying that travellers were entering Singapore even though there was a travel ban in place for visitors from South Asia.
The Transport Ministry said that the information in the video was false and said that Singapore Incidents will have to carry a correction notice on its social media pages.