Delhi, Mar 01: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for the Indian Air Force to join the evacuation efforts under Operation Ganga, the source said.
Leveraging the capacities of our Air Force will ensure that more people can be evacuated in a shorter time frame. It will also help deliver humanitarian aid more efficiently. Indian Air Force is likely to deploy several C-17 aircraft as part of Operation Ganga from Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has cleared the participation of the Indian Air Force fleet of C-17 transport aircraft to take part in the operation Ganga to bring back the Indians stranded in war-torn Ukraine.
“In order to scale up the ongoing evacuation efforts under Operational Ganga, PM Modi has called for the Indian Air Force to join the evacuation efforts. Leveraging the capacities of our Air Force will ensure that more people can be evacuated in a shorter time frame. It will also help deliver humanitarian aid more efficiently. Indian Air Force is likely to deploy several C-17 aircraft as part of Operation Ganga from today,” government sources said here.
The Indian Air Force has put its fleet of C-17 transport aircraft on stand by for evacuating citizens from Ukraine.
The American C-17 Globemasters and IL-76 transport aircraft are the most capable of flying long distances with around 400 passengers. The C-17 transport aircraft had helped in In a big way to evacuate citizens and officials from Kabul when the Taliban captured Afghan Islam and forced Americans to exit from there.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi met President Ram Nath Kovind and briefed him on several issues including India’s response to the Ukraine-Russia war, as per sources.
On Tuesday morning, the seventh evacuation flight with 182 Indian nationals who were stranded in Ukraine returned to the country as part of Operation Ganga. Since Russia declared war on Ukraine on February 24, the Indian government has been coordinating efforts to bring back Indian nationals stranded there.
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Yesterday, PM Modi chaired a high-level meeting on the Ukraine situation, during which it was decided that four Union ministers would travel to Ukraine’s neighbouring nations as India’s special envoys to coordinate the operation to evacuate Indians stuck in the war-torn region.
Hardeep Puri will be in Hungary while VK Singh will oversee the evacuation operation in Poland. Jyotiraditya Scindia will take care of evacuation efforts from Romania and Moldova, while Kiren Rijiju will be in Slovakia to manage the evacuation of Indians who have come from Ukraine through land borders.
