Mumbai, April 19 -- Struggling to contain the huge COVID-19 surge, Maharashtra on Sunday declared six states, including the national capital and the NCR region, as the places of "sensitive origin" in a bid to stop the "influx of other variants of coronavirus" from other locations.

An order signed by Maharashtra chief secretary Sitaram Kunte has declared states of Kerala, Goa, Gujarat, Delhi and NCR region, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand as the places of "sensitive origin".

As per the order, passengers traveling to Maharashtra from the six states declared as the places of sensitive origin will need an RT-PCR negative test within 48 hours of their train travel.

This decision has been taken to curb the transmission of coronavirus in Maharashtr...