Panaji, May 27 (IANS): Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Wednesday said that testing of all persons entering Goa without a Covid-19 negative certificate would now be made mandatory, doing away with the need for implementing a separate SOP for persons from Maharashtra entering the coastal state.

"We maintain the need for a Covid negative certificate and a compulsory Covid test. The 14-day home quarantine option will be no longer available. Either you bring the negative certificate or have to take the test," Sawant told reporters at a press conference at the state secretariat.

On Tuesday, Sawant had said that the Goa government was mulling a separate SOP for persons from Maharashtra entering the state, on account of the increasing number of Covid-19 cases in the neighbouring state. Sawant had said that Maharashtra accounts for 90 per cent of the active Covid-19 cases traced in Goa.

The new norm, which demands that incoming persons either carry a Covid-19 negative certificate obtained 48 hours prior to entering Goa or undergo a mandatory coronavirus test will be valid till June 3, Sawant said, adding that the state's health infrastructure had the capacity to test 1,000 samples per day for traces of coronavirus infection.

The earlier SOP allowed persons entering the state to avail of a 14-day home quarantine option.

The Chief Minister said that from the time the sample is taken till the results are declared, the returnees to the state must remain in home quarantine.