Daijiworld Media Network - New Delhi (SHP)

New Delhi, Apr 26: A fleet of special flights is being planned by the centre to bring back Indians who have been stranded abroad due to the cancellation of international flights in the wake of coronavirus pandemic.

As per a report by Hindustan Times, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been conducting meetings with senior officers regarding the matter for a week.

Cabinet secretary Rajiv Gauba on Friday April 24 requested state governments to make arrangements for hospital beds and quarantine zones for the Indian nationals who will be brought back in special flights after the national lockdown ends.

File photo

Although no official announcement pertaining to the lifting of lockdown has been announced, the relaxation in certain sectors can be considered as the government's plans to head to that direction.

Officials have said that many of the restrictions in place during the lockdown would be eased only gradually. PM Modi is scheduled to hold a meeting with chief ministers on Monday April 27 to obtain their views on the matter.

"This is the right time to start firming up the exercise to evacuate Indians abroad…. It will be a gigantic exercise,” a top government official was quoted by Hindustan Times.

The external affairs ministry is already formulating plans to make an assessment of the people who want to return to India. Officials estimate that the assessment will not only include the stranded Indians but others who wish to come back too. For instance, as per one estimate in the government, Kerala alone expects 1,00,000 expats to come back, for a visit to meet their family if not for a longer duration when the flights start operating. The other states that expect a huge inflow of citizens abroad are Delhi, Maharashtra, Punjab, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the report stated. A separate control room is being set up within MEA for the same purpose.

In the initial days of the outbreak in India, several state governments were of the opinion that the infrastructure to accommodate Indians from abroad would be unavailable. There was hardly any medical or quarantine facility ready for them.

At his meeting with the top civil servants of the states, the country senior-most bureaucrat Gauba told them to go into overdrive to create the facilities necessary for the Indians coming back after May 3. He also indicated the basic ground rules how the mammoth exercise would be carried out.

The Indian citizens evacuated from abroad will be brought to the international airport nearest to their state so that the requirement for internal travel is minimised. The states have also been told that arriving passengers would be straightaway taken to the quarantine centres where they will have to spend a minimum of 14 days.

Ever since the ban on international flights was enforced on March 22, Indians stranded abroad asserted pressure on the Indian government to bring them back. Sensing the situation, the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has been constantly in touch with his Gulf and Saudi Arabia counterparts to ask them to take care of the Indians stranded there and reassure them that they would be evacuated as soon as possible. These countries are home to over 9 million Indians in the region. With the Gulf region more than accommodative to Indian requests, the government had also put medical supplies and assistance on the highest priority to these nations.