GUWAHATI: The third scheduled repatriation flight from Ukraine under Vande Bharat Mission landed at the LGBI Airport here in the wee hours of Thursday, official sources informed.
The Air India flight from Kiev with 69 passengers on board landed at the airport at 2.30am on Thursday, within 24 hours of another flight from Russia carrying 37 passengers, mostly students from Assam and other Northeastern states, descending on the tarmac here.
All COVID-19 safety protocols were adhered to at the airport where the returnees were made to register after which they were taken to their respective quarantine centres as mandated by the health department.
Assam chief secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna, it may be recalled, had recently announced that four repatriation flights would land in Guwahati between May 27 and June 5, 2020.
The first of these repatriation flights, a Jazeera Airways carrier from Kuwait had landed in Guwahati on May 29 carrying 155 passengers who were stranded in the Gulf nation after the outbreak of the contagion.
More repatriation flights are scheduled to land here in the coming weeks under Vande Bharat Mission.
“Projected flights from UK, USA, Kyrgyzstan and Singapore may be landing here in the next phase starting June 14 under Vande Bharat Mission,” Krishna had recently informed through Twitter.
The Embassy in Manila, Philippines has also proposed a flight from Manila to Guwahati.
The Centre’s Vande Bharat Mission aims at repatriating Indians stranded overseas.
The Assam government has received several requests from overseas-stranded people, especially students, belonging to the state during the pandemic, to arrange flights and facilitate their return to the state.
