A day after opposition parties, including the Congress launched a scathing attack against the Union government and the railways for charging money from migrants for the travel, sources in the railways said the national transporter is spending around Rs 80 lakh per service for the special trains, and it has run 67 such trains carrying around 67,000 stranded migrants since May 1--- incurring an expenditure of over Rs 50 crore.
However, the new rule is valid only for domestic flights and the international flights do not come under its purview.
The SOP said the train schedule, protocols for entry and movement of passengers, services to be provided in coaches, and arrangements with states and UTs for booking of tickets shall be publicised by the MOR.
Launching its biggest ever repatriation exercise, India on Thursday airlifted 363 of its citizens, including nine infants, stranded in the United Arab Emirates due to the international travel lockdown over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Over 20,400 foreign nationals have been evacuated from India amid the coronavirus crisis and any decision on bringing Indians from abroad will be taken at a later stage after reviewing the situation, the government said on Friday.
India will be airlifting its nationals from strife-torn Yemen after getting permission from authorities to fly from Sanna for three hours a day.
Teams of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) were roped in to rescue hundreds of stranded people, they said.
The first two special flights that will operate from Thursday to evacuate Indians stranded in the UAE due to the coronavirus pandemic
"When the A320 plane, which did not have any passengers as it was heading to Moscow to bring back stranded Indians under Vande Bharat Mission, had reached Uzbekistan's airspace, our team on ground realised that one of the pilots had tested COVID-positive," senior Air India officials said.
Non-scheduled commercial flights are being arranged and this operation will begin from May 7 in a phased manner.
The passengers have been quarantined at the Indian Army Wellness Centre at Jaisalmer.
The migrants were ferried to their villages in sanitised buses arranged by the Jharkhand government to take them home after preliminary medical screening at the station, officials said.
The Northern Railways said it has cancelled around 17 trains and diverted around 12 others, while traffic has been suspended at four locations due to waterlogging.
Protests against 'Agnipath' left Bihar in flames on Friday when rampaging mobs set fire to dozens of railway coaches, engines and stations and torched Bharatiya Janata Party offices, vehicles and other property, prompting the police to suspend internet services in nearly a third of the state.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has forecast 'extremely heavy rains' at a few places in Marathwada, Mumbai and other parts of the coastal Konkan region of Maharashtra in the next 24 hours.
Out of the 932 trains which have been operated so far, 215 are in transit while 717 have terminated at various stations. Sixty-seven more are in the pipeline, an official said.
Thousands of migrants were stranded in places across the country since the lockdown was enforced on March 25, many even attempting to walk home.
The authorities urged the people to maintain peace and tranquility and do not allow the miscreants to create any trouble in their respective areas.
The sooner the airlines get their act together, the better.
Since the beginning of running the Shramik Special trains, Gujarat remained one of the top originating stations followed by Kerala.
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A special Indian Air Force repatriation flight ferrying 168 evacuees from Kabul landed at the Hindon air base in Ghaziabad on Sunday.
External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours.
A dense blanket of fog enveloped the entire North India affecting schedule of at least 70 trains and hitting road traffic adversely while there was no let up in cold wave on Saturday which claimed five lives in Uttar Pradesh and two in Punjab.
At least four passengers were killed and another eight were injured when the Delhi-Dibrugarh Rajdhani Express derailed at Golden Ganj station near Chhapra on early Wednesday morning in a suspected sabotage by Maoists.
A day after Islamabad downgraded diplomatic ties with New Delhi over developments in Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan's Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told the media in Islamabad on Thursday that Pakistan has closed the Samjhauta Express train service with India.
Airlines such as IndiGo, Air India, Vistara and AirAsia India have decided to go with the new attire to ensure safety of cabin crew members as they are in close proximity to passengers during flights
The Indian Railways has been ordered by a consumer forum in New Delhi to pay over Rs 36,000 to a 60-year-old man for leaving him stranded on a small station in a cold winter night in the process of making him change his berth from one bogey to another of the same train.
'The government and railways are looking after us, but I just want to get home.'
From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened 'Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned AI operate 64 flights till May 13 in the first phase to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.
Announcing the start of day-time domestic commercial operations, the Airports Authority of India said on Saturday night that decision on night operations would be taken on Sunday.
An Iran Air flight carrying Indian pilgrims stranded in coronavirus-hit Iran landed at the airport in Mumbai on Friday afternoon, an official said.
While no exact dates have been announced yet, the flights could take off from San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington DC, the officials said.
"We have found that a couple of international airlines are not adhering to the rules. Failure to adhere to rules shall entail strict action," said Director General of Civil Aviation Arun Kumar.
The pilots and cabin crew were provided training in all the steps on donning and doffing of Personal Protective Equipment suits, infection control practices to be followed inflight and also the management of anticipated health emergencies during the flight, the medical college authorities said.
In Jammu region, three districts of Jammu, Samba and Kathua are in red zone.
Serbia has become one of the transit points for Indians heading to Canada and the US. Canada requires passengers from India to take an RT-PCR test from a third country, while the US wants them to spend 14 days outside of India. As a result, many students are taking the Serbia route to Canada, and the US.
"All efforts are being made to help passengers. A formal enquiry will be conducted by Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau," the minister said on Twitter.
They said stranded Indians in central Asia as well as in various European countries will be brought back home in the second phase of evacuation beginning May 15.
Nearly 25 passengers were so far reported injured after two trains derailed while crossing a swollen Machak river near Harda in Madhya Pradesh even as rescue operations continued, officials said on Wednesday.
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