Principal Secretary (Department of Transport and Buildings) and chairman of the task force committee constituted by the Andhra Pradesh government for evacuation of students from the strife-torn Ukraine, M.T. Krishna Babu, along with a group of students who were brought back safely (one student from each district), will meet Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday at the Secretariat to thank the government for its timely efforts for their safe return.
Mr. Krishna Babu said soon after trouble broke out in Ukraine, the State government wrote a letter to the Union Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar offering its full support in the repatriation of the Indian nationals from Ukraine.
The government also wrote to the Indian embassy requesting for information of Telugu students and NRTs who were willing to travel back to India. For safe return of people stranded in the war-hit zones, the government also set up control rooms at the Secretariat and the State Real Time Governance Society (RTGS) office and appointed a team of officials, said Mr. Krishnababu.
The task force committee, he said, established contact with the Union Ministry of External Affairs to coordinate with the embassies of India in Ukraine and its border nations. With the support of the Centre and the advisories from the embassies, the State government could communicate with student groups and guide them with the latest information besides maintaining contact with Telugu associations, business professionals and local student groups there for immediate help.
Based on the information gathered by the task force, the government officials here reached out to the parents of students and updated them with the status of their children’s location while making arrangements for their safe repatriation. Teams were deployed in airports at Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Visakhapatnam, Chennai and Hyderabad to receive students from the State and facilitate their onward journey to their respective destinations.
The government also deployed its representatives in Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, bordering countries of Ukraine, to coordinate the repatriation of Telugu people.
Mr. Krishna Babu said a total of 918 students safely reached their homes. Of them, 692 were received by the government representatives at New Delhi and Mumbai airports while 226 people made it to their homes on their own.
The team scheduled to meet the Chief Minister includes Advisor to Government (Public Affairs) Sajjala Ramakrishna, Chief Secretary Sameer Sharma, Special Officer, International Affairs Geetesh Sharma, former CEO, RTGS, Ahmed Babu, Andhra Pradesh Non-Resident Telugu Society CEO Dinesh Kumar, president, APNRT M. S. Venkat, Special Representative to Europe Ravindra Reddy, Deputy Advisor, NRT Affairs Chandrahasa Reddy and Special Representative of AP at NATA P. Ratnakar.
