VIJAYAWADA: A group of Indian students evacuated from Ukraine will be meeting Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday, said MT Krishna Babu, principal secretary (transport) and chairman of the Task Force committee that looked after their evacuation.
In a press release, the officer said soon after Russia invaded its neighbour, the CM contacted Minister for External Affairs S Jaishankar and assured the latter that the State government will extend its complete cooperation in the repatriation of Indian nationals from Ukraine.
“A letter was sent to the Indian Embassy in Kyiv on January 30, requesting information about Telugu students and all non-resident Telugu people there willing to travel back to India. To ensure their safe return, the government constituted a control room at the Secretariat, from where I headed a task force of senior officials.”
The committee established contact with the MEA for coordination with Indian Embassies in Ukraine and its border countries. It got in touch with student groups and guided them with information, and maintained contact with Telugu associations and business professionals there “The Indian foreign secretary liaised with ambassadors of Russia and Ukraine to reiterate our demand for provision of urgent safe passage to Indian nationals who were in conflict zones. Similar action was also taken by Indian ambassadors to Russia and Ukraine,” he said.
Government officials here visited the families of 586 students stuck in Ukraine, data for which was provided by the MEA. The task force committee also deployed special teams in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Visakhapatnam, Hyderabad and Chennai airports to receive students hailing from the State.
It deputed representatives to the neighbouring countries of Ukraine such as Hungary, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia from where Indians were evacuated via specially-arranged flights.
Till date, 692 students have been brought back to the State from Ukraine; 549 of them were received at Delhi airport and 143 at Mumbai airport. Another 226 students/NRTs reached home by their own arrangements, accounting to a total of 918 people who were evacuated from Ukraine.