India's Mega Evacuation Plan to repatriate 15,000 citizens from 12 countries

NewsBharati    05-May-2020 14:46:19 PM
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New Delhi, May 5: The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) announced that the government is going to send 64 flights over a week to bring back over 15,000 Indian nationals stranded amid lockdown. The mega rescue operation has been scheduled for a whole week and it will begin from May 7 in a phased manner.

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“So India finally begins to fly back its Citizens home – approximately 2000 persons a day. A sneak peeks into the 7-day plan. Punjab has only one incoming flight from Dubai, UAE on the 7,” KBS Sidhu, Punjab special chief secretary, tweeted on Tuesday.
 
 
As per the plan, blue-collar workers, including those who have lost jobs in West Asia, such as UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, will be repatriated first, followed by students and Indians.
 
The 64 special flights will be sent to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Malaysia, the UK, Singapore, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and the US. A majority of these flights will be operated by Air India. Moreover, India is going to evacuate 1,92,000 people in the first phase of the mammoth exercise with the focus on the Gulf.
 
 
However, MEA clarified yesterday that this is a repatriation exercise and not an evacuation, which means that passengers returning will have to bear the cost of their air ticket.
 
Further, three naval ships INS Jalashwa, INS Magar, and INS Shardul have been sent to evacuate Indians stranded in Maldives and UAE. Earlier this year, India brought back approximately 2500 of its citizens and 48 foreign nationals from China, Japan, Iran, and Ita