New Delhi: The Indian government has accelerated the evacuation plan for Indians stranded in Ukraine, by increasing the number of flights to bring back more Indian nationals, under Operation Ganga.
By March 10, a total of 80 flights will be pressed into service to evacuate Indians from the neighbouring countries of Ukraine, sources told news agency ANI.
These flights will be provided by Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, SpiceJet, Vistara, and Go Air. The IAF will also provide its aircraft.
As many as 35 evacuations have been planned from Bucharest, ANI reported. Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, and Vistara will provide fourteen, eight, seven, and three flights respectively, to carry out the evacuations. SpiceJet will provide one flight. The IAF will provide two aircraft to evacuate Indians from Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
According to the report, a total of 28 flights are scheduled to take off from Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Of these, Go Air will provide 15 flights. IndiGo and Air India will provide nine and two flights respectively. Both SpiceJet and the IAF will provide one flight each.
A total of nine flights are scheduled from Rzeszow, Poland. These include eight flights being provided by IndiGo, and one being provided by the IAF.
Meanwhile, five flights are scheduled to take off from Suceava, Romania, and three flights from Kosice, Slovakia.
Approximately 17,000 stranded Indians will be evacuated from Ukraine via the flights scheduled to take off from Budapest, Bucharest, Rzeszow, Suceava, and Kosice, ANI reported.
According to an ANI report, the government has roped in more than two dozen ministers to monitor smooth evacuation and to receive Indians returning from Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, and Poland under Operation Ganga, at the Delhi and Mumbai airports.
Four Union ministers are in Ukraine's neighbouring countries to expedite evacuation. Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, Hardeep Singh Puri, is currently in Hungary. Meanwhile, Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia, is in Romania.
General Vijay Kumar Singh, Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, is in Poland.
Kiren Rijiju, Union Minister of Law and Justice, is in Slovakia, to expedite evacuation through Operation Ganga.
According to the ANI report, Ministers Jitendra Singh, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Rao Inderjeet Singh, Narayan Rane, G Kishan Reddy, Kailash Choudhary, Parshottam Rupala, Bhagwant Khuba, Virendra Kumar, Meenakshi Lekhi, V. Muraleedharan, Bhagwat Karad, Nisith Pramanik, Shantanu Thakur, Rao Saheb Danve, Darshana Jardosh, Devusinh Chauhan, Bharati Pravin Pawar, Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti, Bhanu Pratap Singh Verma, Subhas Sarkar, Kapil Patil have been assigned to receive the flights coming from neighbouring countries of Ukraine carrying Indians.
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Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Jyotiraditya Scindia, who is currently in Romania, said Thursday that eight flights will arrive in Bucharest today and will take around 1,800 citizens to India, ANI reported. Scindia said that yesterday, six flights carrying around 1,300 citizens left from Bucharest.
He further said that he is heading towards border point Siret. More than 1,000 students are in Siret, the minister said.
Scindia said that Suceava is a nearby airport to Siret. Therefore, two IndiGo flights are coming to Suceava today and will take around 450 students back to India, he said.
Tomorrow, four flights will come to Suceava and will carry 900 to 1,000 students, Scindia said.