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As India enters the sixth week of its strict countrywide lockdown, the Modi government now faces immense pressure to ease out on its flight restrictions and bring back home citizens stranded overseas, especially students, those with medical emergencies, and migrant workers in the Gulf region. Since the announcement of the sudden lockdown, while the embassies and missions have been providing support including food, medicines and accommodation where possible, the situation has now increasingly become untenable for many, say sources, to stay put where they are.
One of the key focus areas will be to bring back around 87,000 Indian students stranded in some 37 countries. Of these, the majority students are in 12 countries including United States, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Spain, UK, Canada, and New Zealand.
“When the lockdown to battle the pandemic was announced suddenly, including suspension of flights, the worst hit were many students in European cities as universities closed down hostels, and landlords asked them to vacate their places. So Europe will see more evacuations,” said an official member of one of the few National Action Committees providing inputs for evacuation plans of Indian students.
These flights will facilitate overseas stranded students as well as businessmen and those with urgent medical needs to travel. In addition, sources say that the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has also advised the MEA to strategically allow for some limited domestic flights with minimal activity across major airports, including Delhi, to facilitate further movement of these students.
Meanwhile, the MEA COVID-19 Emergency Cell headed by Additional Secretary Dammu Ravi has been responding to distress calls and grievances of stranded Indians, and reporting to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who is in charge of the evacuation plans and reports to Prime Minister Modi on the subject.
As of the morning of 25 April, the control room received more than 10,000 calls and 26,000 emails, many of them pertaining to stranded Indian nationals. In the past few weeks, through coordination between MEA, Health and Aviation Ministries and DGCA, permissions were cleared for some 60-70 air ambulances that brought back young and old to the country, who needed urgent medical attention.
The aim was to address consular visa problems of stranded Indians with the help of host countries, and provide them relief and support through Indian missions and community networks. Some 27 countries have extended visas for Indians and foreigners stranded on their soil due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
But the situation has now become more worrisome in the Gulf region which has nine million plus Indian migrants.
Sources have confirmed that the decision has now been taken to repatriate some two and a half lakh Indian migrants in the Gulf – especially the transit migrants in construction sectors in UAE and Saudi, whose short term contracts are over.
The dominant majority of these workers belong to states like Kerala, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Telangana. “There is an ongoing discussion about the welfare of Indian workers. There are some reports where workers in the Gulf have been asked to return because projects have completed. This is a dynamic situation where discussions are ongoing,” said an official privy to discussions earlier.
While logistical constraints need to be factored in and a phased evacuation plan will be decided upon a meeting next week, it is also learnt that the numbers could be higher, since almost 850,000 migrants from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra and four other states have now signed up seeking help to return.
As per sources, the repatriation plan was also discussed in details at a meeting of all nodal ministries and coordinating agencies on Saturday, chaired by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba and including Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla, all chief secretaries of states and union territories, and secretaries of home, labour and economic affairs ministries.
This is what Congress leader and Deputy CM, Rajasthan, Sachin Pilot, had to say, pointing to the plight of migrants – both domestic and in the Gulf:
(Smita Sharma is an independent journalist and tweets at @Smita_Sharma. The views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
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