Operation Ganga: Six flights depart from Romania carrying Indian citizens

Scindia, who is in Romania to oversee the evacuation of Indian nationals stranded in Ukraine, said on Wednesday that a total of six flights with 1,300 Indian students will depart for India from Bucharest on Wednesday (local time).

Scindia is one of the four ‘special envoys’ deployed by the Indian government to oversee the evacuation process of Indian nationals in Ukraine’s neighboring countries.

He said, “Over the next two days, a total of 3,500 students will leave from Bucharest and about 1,300 from Suseva for India. Tomorrow I will leave for the Siret border and will be there for two days until every Indian is evacuated from there. Siret. We are setting up two call centers to coordinate Indian students – one in Bucharest and the other in Sirte (Romania).”

“Today we have six flights from Bucharest (Romania) to India. About 1,300 students are leaving for India today. Yesterday I met around 300-400 Indian students at the airport. They went through a lot of trials and tribulations. It is our responsibility to send them back home safely,” the Union minister said.

He told that the entire evacuation work has been divided into four parts. “The first is to bring all our students from Ukraine to the neighboring country’s borders; the second is to enable them to cross the border into the neighboring country.”

In addition, he said that “the third part is to bring them from the border of the neighboring country to the place of descent to the airports, and the fourth is to evacuate them safely to India.”

Assuring the Indians to provide assistance in the evacuation process, Scindia said, “We are setting up two call centers – one in Bucharest and the other in Cyrate (Romania) to coordinate with Indian students.”

The Union Minister met the Prime Minister of Romania, Nicolae Ciuca, in Romania on Wednesday and thanked the latter for helping to evacuate Indian nationals.

Scindia also took stock of the arrangements and supplies on board the Indian Air Force’s C-17 flight in Bucharest on Wednesday.

Taking to Twitter, the Union Minister said, “Along with the C-17 Globemaster crew, taking stock of the supplies. I thank the Indian Air Force, the Romanian Embassy and the Indian Embassy in Romania for working round the clock without rest on all aspects of evacuation operations. Thanks! Long live Mother India! #OperationGanga.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday chaired a high-level meeting on the issue. Union Ministers S Jaishankar, Piyush Goyal, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and other officials attended the meeting.