Hi All,
I traveled from Mumbai to Lucknow along with family on 7th Aug by own car. Sharing my experience if it helps.
I traveled with my 6 month old infant hence chose to travel via Gujarat and Rajasthan instead of shorter route via MP since there are more options to stay on that route and few of my relatives also stay there in case of any emergency.Below is travel schedule:
7th Aug- Mumbai to Udaipur
8th Aug-Udaipur to Agra
9th Aug-Agra to Lucknow

I did apply for epass and after continuous followup through phone/twitter got it approved in 2 days. I pasted a copy on windshield.
But noone asked for any pass or inquired anyway on the route
Stayed at Radisson both in Udaipur and Agra. I will recommend both the hotels. Staff was more courteous and helpful in Agra. Be prepared to wait for some time since they are running with limited staff.
Route Update
Heavy truck traffic as usual till Vadodara, additionally be ready for traffic jams due to number of overpass being constructed, wherever possible try and take detour via villages.
Rest entire route was wonderful without any problem. Thanks !

HYD- Relative's place

MP-Seoni- Tiger Pench Reserve. We chose the Reserve because it was far away from Nagpur. We stayed in a resort(Vannraj) here.

MP- Gwalior- Taj Usha Kiran. They promised that any rooms booked by guests are not occupied atleast 72hrs prior checkin. They also took good amount of safety measures.

We also chose these hotels because they did not use cetralised AC. The places we stayed barely had guests. Room rates are super cheap everywhere.

After every checkin wife and I spent atleast 20-25 mins sanitizing the room with ethanol/IPA spray. Sofa, phone, taps, remotes, shelves, hangars etc what ever we would touch or use. Ofcourse contact was kept to minimum. We also carried our own sheets that we spread over the pillows and mattresses. Carried minimum required luggage into the room and rest was left in car.

Food- Carried some snacks on the way. Rest was some cup-o-noodles when needed. We also ordered food at the resort/hotel but only hot food. Sanitised plates/cutlery when needed.

Make the car your safe space. Whenever we got down we made sure to spray the soles of our shoes with IPA before getting back in. Don't stop at roadside eateries or crowded places.

As per this letter issued by Home Secretary, Government of India, the restrictions being imposed by states and districts for movement of people and goods and requirements of e-pass, is in violation of guidelines issued by MHA under provisions of Disaster Management Act 2005.

Link to tweet.


This means that none of the state governments can ask for an e-pass from anyone travelling to or from or through a particular state by own vehicle. Although the quarantine rules as per different states would still hold I suppose.

Finally, some sense prevails. Restricting movement may have made sense at one point in time, but now with community transmission well underway in almost all places, this pass system and restrictions each local authority was imposing on their own had become nothing but license raj.

Hi Mnjdnght: Did you get a reply to this? I'm in a similar situation.. need to travel from Hyderabad to Chennai next week like travel to Chennai on 30th and return to Hyderabad on 1st September.If quarantine is enforced il be able to travel back only in mid September. Will have to drop the travel in such case:

This is a welcome move as far as inter state travels are concerned. Hope this will get implemented. And yes, the rules for the respective destination states need to be followed.

I recently traveled from Chennai to Kerala via Karnataka. I had to take an exit pass from Tamil Nadu, a transit pass for Karnataka and a registration entry pass from Kerala. We were stopped at all district borders in Tamil Nadu, for e pass validation. Karnataka check post (Attibele) experience was even horrible, no sense of social distancing prevailed.

Haven't got responses yet on this except from Arun Josie (quoted below) whose reply was encouraging.

Though I was initially thinking of making the trip in September, I've now decided to travel to Chennai on Aug 26th and return on Aug 27th. I should be able to provide you updates before your trip.

I have travelled to Chennai from Hyderabad on 18th July by applying epass. Entered Tamil Nadu at Gummidipondi checkpost at around 6 PM. No one stamped on my hand indicating home quarantine and only entry was made into their books with my details : name, address, aadhar and phone number. Pass was verified on their mobile by scanning QR code.

Now that epasses are not required. Only registrations are required to enter and they should be auto approved. So it should be not a problem for you now to go Chennai and worry about quarantine. By 18th July time itself, things were pretty eased up though they are present on paper.

It is up to us to stay safe even when no one is forcing to follow the rules.

Need to drive from Kolkata to Raipur and back next week. Will be crossing Orissa and Jharkhand on the way. Do we need Transit pass for intermediate state ? If yes what's the process?

Would be helpful if anybody can tell me the passes required for the travel. It's a 1 week trip (kinda urgent) Kolkata->Raipur->Kolkata.

Thanks in advance.

Registrations are only for inter-district travel, for inter-state movement it is still approval based ePass as of now.

These are the permissions and authorizations that are most likely to be done away with (or already done) based on last week's MHA order that categorically states that there should be be no such permission required to travel between states. Would like to read experiences of interstate travel from this week on the forum to get better clarity on how this recent order from MHA has changed anything at all.

Refer to the image posted by BoneCollector, more precisely point number 4 in that image that clearly states that restrictions by district level or state level authorities is a violation of MHA guideline itself.

Although right from Unlock 1.0 this was stated each time MHA came up with their set of guidelines, the states always had authorization or pass system that travellers had to adhere to.

Such practices put a lot of hardship to travellers, with passes often getting rejected for frivolous reasons too.

When my friend read out this guideline on last Saturday, I was telling him how this was always there but then this was different as it clearly stated how
state govts bringing in the epass or permission system is a violation of MHA guideline itself.

With this new arrangement, I expect simple registration and then you travel across the country. The registrations will help the state govts to track inter state entry (and of course the HQ or IQ thereafter).

Who is going to explain MHA guidelines to police manning checkpoints? Eventually that's what affects those who travel, and they do what the state tells them to do, not the MHA.

As I said, we need to wait and hear from those who will drive now between states and share their experience. Till then we can always assume that the current epass system remains applicable.

E-Passes are prevalent in Maharashtra. The state govt is insisting on it and I'm not sure if the centre can do anything about it.

Link.

It will take time to trickle down the system. But the center making a strong statement is necessary to start the process and am glad they have.

Some states will comply quicker, I guess there are political dimensions unfortunately. Some smaller districts and sub-regions may continue enforcing whatever checks they imagine are necessary for longer.

[Some hyper-local authorities on power-trips will never relent! For example, the residents of a couple of streets in my neighborhood have blocked access to 'their' roads using chains! I think it's illegal to block access to a government road, right? But they think that keeping 'outsiders' out will keep covid out...even though all the residents of those roads are roaming around happily outside and returning every day to their 'bubble'! ]

Unfortunately those who have to travel immediately (and have been so far) are bearing the brunt of such irrational restrictions. But at least as far as inter-state and inter-district travel goes, I'm pretty sure that sooner or later all major states will comply with this directive. (Some insular states in the NE might hold out for longer.)