The Union government has laid out a massive plan to evacuate the Indian expats living in Gulf countries. Hundreds of thousands of Indians have been stranded in various Gulf countries as travel restrictions were imposed in various countries.
national media reported that 30 aircraft of Indian Air Force and 14 ships of Indian Navy were put on standby for the massive evacuation exercise. Both the Navy and Air Force are all set to start the massive process.
As per reports, Indian Navy would be looking at evacuating Indians from Gulf countries and the Air Force from other nations, including European countries. The bulk of the evacuees will be accommodated in three earmarked ships in the first phase, the rest will follow as per requirement.
Indian Air Force chief Air Chief Marshal R.K.S. Bhadauria and Navy chief Admiral Karambir Singh has earlier confirmed that they are ready and are awaiting the go-ahead.
INS Jalashwa, an amphibious assault ship, and two Magar class tank-landing ships are being readied for evacuation purposes. These ships have started making arrangements as per the standard protocol laid out to deal with suspected Covid-19 people such as social distancing and sanitation.These three ships can bring around 2,000 people while maintaining social distancing.
Earlier, Navy had carried out evacuation in war-torn areas like Lebanon (2006) and Yemen (2015). Before that, evacuation was carried in 1990 during the first Gulf war between Iraq and Kuwait where around 1.5 lakh people were evacuated.
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