NEW DELHI: Delhi’s IGI airport has emerged as the hub for handling and distribution of Covid related aids including vaccines, oxygen concentrators, medical equipment and medicine. From April 28 to May 2, the airport handled around 25 Covid relief flights totalling around 300 tonnes of cargo, originating from various countries such as the US, UK, UAE, Uzbekistan, Thailand, Germany, Qatar, Hong Kong and China.
To ensure swift distribution of relief materials coming from other countries, the airport authorities have set up a dedicated logistic facility, Jeevoday warehouse, spread over 3,500 square metres for interim storage and distribution. The facility was commissioned in less than a day on April 28. “All the Covid-19 relief materials are brought to JEEVODAY warehouse after Customs clearance, where they are sorted and further distributed to other parts of the country by the Central government agency as per distribution plan,” an official of the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) said.
Most of the relief flights were supported by Air Force aircraft which included IL76, C130, C5 and C17.
“These flights brought in over 5,500 oxygen concentrators, approximately 3,200 oxygen cylinders, over 9.28 lakh masks and 1.36 lakh Remdesivir injections. Dedicated teams from cargo terminal operators, clearing agent, distribution warehouse centre have been assigned to ensure that the entire process of handling such relief aid materials is done quickly with the support of Central government’s agencies including customs and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF),” said the official,
Besides, the Delhi Airport ensures that priority in landing is given to flights carrying Covid relief aid and such aircraft get parking at cargo bays near the cargo terminals, just like the aircraft bringing vaccine consignments are handled on priority. It is to make sure that consignments are processed and cleared in the least possible time after landing.
Delhi Airport is the largest cargo hub airport of the South Asia region, with two integrated cargo terminals having an annual cargo handling capacity of 1.8 million metric tonnes (MT) which is scalable to 2.3 million (MT). The temperature-controlled cargo facilities can handle over 1.5 lakh MT per annum. These facilities have state-of-the-art temperature-controlled zones with separate cool chambers ranging from –20 to +25 degree Celsius.