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Bengaluru, Jun 4: The Karnataka government has tweaked quarantine requirements for people arriving from Maharashtra, raising the isolation time from a fortnight to three weeks, an official said on Wednesday.

"Returnees from Maharashtra will be sent to institutional quarantine for seven days, followed by 14 days strict home quarantine, total 21 days," tweeted Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey.

The 21-day quarantine regimen is for all asymptomatic people returning from Maharashtra, considering most of the Covid cases in Karnataka are having domestic travel history to that state.

If any of the asymptomatic people develop symptoms during the isolation, they will be subjected to a Covid test.

However, some asymptomatic individuals from Maharashtra have been provided some exceptions from the three-week quarantine and designated as special category passengers.

Special category passengers include people who suffered a death in family, pregnant women, children below 10, elderly people above 60, individuals suffering from serious illness and human distress.

Similarly, the department has also made some provisions for business travellers from Maharashtra.

"To establish that one is a business visitor, (that) person should show confirmed return flight or train ticket which should not be more than seven days later from the date of arrival," ordered Chief Secretary T.M. Vijay Bhaskar.

Similarly, if a business visitor is arriving on road, he should provide the address proof of the person in Karnataka he intends to meet.

Additionally, such a person should also produce a Covid negative test certificate which is not more than two days old.

"One does not have a Covid negative test certificate such a person should go for institutional quarantine for two days within which Covid test should be conducted at his own cost. After the test result is negative, that person is exempted from quarantine," he said.

However, business travellers have been exempted from hand stamping.

Amending the Sunday orders, Bhaskar, has enhanced the quarantine requirements for Maharashtra returnees.

Many conditions for visitors from other states remain mostly unchanged as notified on Sunday.

Bengaluru, Jan 2: Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "neglecting" Karnataka ahead of his visit on Thursday, the state Congress questioned why he did not give adequate relief and pay a visit to the state, when most of its parts were affected by severe floods last year.

Modi will begin his two-day visit to the state on Thursday afternoon.

The Congress' Karnataka unit in a series of tweets also questioned the Prime Minister about not conferring the "Bharat Ratna" on Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Math, who passed away last year at the age of 111 years.

"Why you did not visit the state, when it was affected by floods? Despite the damage of over Rs 1 lakh crore why you did not declare it as a national disaster? Why you did not give interim relief? When the state government has given a report that the damage caused was to the tune of Rs 35,300 crore why did you sit quiet by giving just Rs 1,200 crore," the state Congress tweeted.

As many as 103 taluks in 22 districts of Karnataka were affected due to unprecedented floods in August, in which over 80 people were killed.

Around seven lakh people were shifted to safe areas during the deluge and thousands of houses were damaged.

In October, various parts of the state faced a deluge for the second time in two months, killing over 13 people and damaging thousands of houses.

Asking as to why the Centre was not giving the state's share of GST amount adequately, the Congress questioned as to why dues under MNREGA programme were not paid so far, and why Karnataka was being neglected while allocating grants.

Questioning Modi as to why he did not visit Tumakuru when Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Math passed away, the principal opposition party in the state Assembly, also sought to know why the seer was not conferred with the Bharat Ratna yet.

It also pointed out that former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had written a letter in this regard in January 2018.

The Congress has also hit out at the BJP-led Central government over imposition of Hindi language by neglecting regional languages and mother tongue.

The Prime Minister will kickstart his visit to the state by paying tributes to the late pontiff's 'Gadduge' (final resting place) at the Math premises near Tumakuru.

Later, he will attend an event organised to give away Krishi Karman awards and to distribute fishing equipment at the government college ground in Tumakuru, before leaving for Bengaluru where he will be attending a DRDO event.

On Friday he will be inaugurating 107th Indian Science Congress here.

Mangaluru, Apr 7: The virology lab set up in Wenlock Hospital here to test COVID-19 samples will start functioning from Tuesday, Karnataka District in-charge Minister Kota Srinivas Poojary said.

In his tweeter Mr Poojary said “After receiving approval from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV), the Virology Research and Diagnostic Laboratory set up at district Wenlock will start operating from April 7. The samples for COVID-19 will be tested in the district itself. I thank the state government for helping us set up the lab.”

The new Lab becomes the 10th government lab for testing COVID-19 samples in the state.