Covid test at Bengaluru airport: Flyers to UAE allege serious misconduct | Bangalore News

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BENGALURU: Many air travelers claim that the only Covid-19 testing laboratory at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) engages in malfeasance, including collecting bribes for negative reports, issuing reports falsified positives to force desperate travelers to take another test at a cost of Rs 3,000 and demand additional funds to quickly release reports. Passengers expressing their anger is a daily affair, with numerous complaints on social media. Authorities, including health department officials, have so far turned a blind eye. With the United Arab Emirates requiring all incoming passengers to take a Covid RT-PCR test before departure, except for a negative test report valid for 48 hours, passengers, mainly those departing from Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah , must undergo testing at the Auriga Research laboratory. , KIA’s only test facility. An RT-PCR test costs Rs 3,000 in the laboratory. On Saturday, a group of more than 35 passengers protested outside the lab, expressing anger at staff members as many passengers due to travel to the UAE received positive reports and staff allegedly persuaded them to spend another Covid test for 3,000 rupees each. “I received my negative Covid report on Friday evening from a lab near my home but on Saturday morning my pre-departure test at the Auriga lab showed I was positive. This has happened to over 30 others. How is -it’s possible?” wondered Hari Mallabadi, a Rajajinagar resident and businessman who was to be part of the Indian pavilion at the ongoing Dubai expo. Protesters claimed that those who re-tested by paying the extra 3,000 rupees received a negative Covid report within minutes with the same QR code. “Those who refused to pay and were retested by Auriga staff free of charge all received positive reports again,” said Judaea Van Buerle, a woman who missed her flight to Dubai. The lab director and staff declined to comment and attempts to reach their spokesperson were unsuccessful. However, airport sources said the hustle and bustle has become a daily affair, with touts deciding whether passengers can fly. Many of those who were found positive by the lab tested negative minutes later at private labs upon returning home after missing their flights to the United Arab Emirates. “The lab gave my wife and I positive reports on January 21 and the staff told us to do a new test by paying an additional 6,000 rupees. But we left thinking we were actually positive. We came back again on January 25 to face the same situation from the staff and this time on the way back we tested ourselves in another lab. Both of our reports were negative,” said Vijay Kumar, also from Rajajinagar. While many passengers have posted their whereabouts on social media, those physically protesting at the lab allege that police personnel often threaten to escort them. Sources at Bangalore International Airport Limited, which operates KIA, said they were looking into the matter.

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