Hardeep Puri en route Budapest to facilitate safe passage for Indians stuck in Europe

Minister of Petroleum and former Diplomat Hardeep Singh Puri is one of the ministers who will be travelling to neighbouring countries of Ukraine to ensure the safe evacuation of Indians under Operation Ganga. The Minister will be travelling to better coordinate between the Indian embassy and stranded students and ensure their safe evacuation from Hungary's capital Budapest. While sharing his photo and giving the latest details about his travel Hardeep Singh Puri shared a photo on his Twitter handle with the airline staff of Indigo while they landed in Istanbul, Turkey for refuelling on its way to Budapest, Hungary. 

A few days ago IndiGO announced that on February 28 and Tuesday, March 1 they will help the Indian Government and assist in the evacuation mission under Operation Ganga from Delhi. The flight is expected to fly to Istanbul first and then to Budapest. On its return leg, the flights will once again come to Istanbul and then to Delhi.

SpiceJet Airlines steps in to help with evacuation efforts

SpiceJet airline sent special flights to Hungary's capital Budapest on February 28, to evacuate Indian students from the borders of the war-hit Ukraine. The private airline company further informed about the details saying that they will be using Boeing 737 MAX for the evacuation, and the flight will take off from Delhi and bring the stranded Indian students from Budapest and then the return flights will take off from Georgia's Kutaisi. The Private airline is in talks with the concerned ministries to get the required permissions as they want to run more evacuation flights. 

Operation Ganga

Under the backing of Operation Ganga, the Union government is aiming to evacuate Indians from Hungary, Poland, Romania, Moldova and Slovakia at its own expense as Ukraine has closed its airspace for civilian flights. Until now, 7 evacuation flights carrying nearly 1,578 nationals have reached India. Union Minister of Law and Justice Kiren Rijiju will travel to coordinate evacuation in Slovakia, Former Aviation Minister and currently Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas and Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Singh Puri will assist and supervise the situation in Hungary. Gen (Retd.) VK Singh will be in Poland. Minister of Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia will oversee the situation in Romania and Moldova.

To upscale the evacuation process, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for the Indian Air Force (IAF) to join Operation Ganga to safely bring back Indians stranded amid the Russia Ukraine war, reported ANI citing sources. In a bid to evacuate more people in a shorter time frame, this decision has been taken. Additionally, the IAF 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.