India has mounted a massive rescue operation named ‘Operation Ganga’ to bring back Indian citizens stranded in Ukraine. Ministry of External Affairs, in close coordination with Ministry of Civil Aviation, is making all efforts to bring the Indian students back to India in fast pace. Indian Airlines are putting their resources in faster evacuation process. Four Union Ministers- Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Shri Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Shri Kiren Rijiju and Gen (Retd) V.K. Singh have gone to countries adjoining Ukraine to support and supervise these operations. Indian Civilian planes as well as Indian Air Force planes are regularly bringing back stranded Indian students.

The evacuation process, which began on 22^nd February, has brought back over 6200 persons so far, including 2185 persons coming today through 10 special civilian flights. Today’s flights included 5 from Bucharest, 2 from Budapest, 1 from Kosice, and 2 from Rzeszow by Civilian airlines. In addition, 3 IAF flights are bringing more Indians today between 11 pm on March 3 and early morning of March 4. Four IAF flights have already brought 798 Indian nationals between midnight of March 2 and early morning of March 3. The number of civilian flights is be scaled up further, and more than 7400 persons are expected to be brought through special flights in next two days. 3500 persons are expected to be brought back tomorrow and over 3900 on 5^th March.

The tentative schedule of special flights for tomorrow is as below:

Total Number of flights: 17

YB/DNS