Operation Samudra Setu: Ship from Maldives, with over 600 Indians, reaches Kochi port

Kochi: A naval ship carrying over 600 Indians from Maldives reached the Kochi port on Sunday morning.

All arrangements are in place to facilitate safe stay of the repatriated people comprising of over 400 Keralites and people from other parts of the country.

INS Jalashwa of the Indian Navy under the "Operation Samudra Setu" had departed from Male port for Kochi with 698 Indian nationals on Friday night.

This is the Indian Navy's first massive evacuation exercise during the COVID-19 lockdown.

The ship arrived at the Cruise Terminal of the Cochin Port Trust on Sunday.

Inspector General of Police Vijay Sakhare had earlier said that 440 people in the ship are from Kerala.

Rest of the passengers are from other parts of the country including Tamil Nadu (187 people), Goa (1), Haryana (3), Andhra Pradesh (8), Assam (1), Karnataka (8), Himachal Pradesh (3), Maharashtra (3), Rajasthan (3), Telangana (9), Lakshadweep (4) are also traveling in the ship.

People from the states including Delhi (4), Puducherry (3), Uttar Pradesh (2), Uttarakhand (7), West Bengal (7), Madhya Pradesh (2) and Jharkhand (2) are also travelling in the vessel.

"All these people, after being disembarked from the ship, will be sent to Institutional Quarantine facilities for 14 days," Sakhare, who is also the commissioner of the Kochi City police said.

The Keralite passengers, once cleared by all statutory organisations, would be transported to different districts in KSRTC buses (30 per bus).

Police would escort them till their quarantine facilities in every single district, he said.

"The people from other states, will stay in the quarantine facilities in Ernakulam for 14 days," said Sakhare who is the in-charge of the operations.

Asked about the transportation of the people from other states after completion of their 14 days quarantine, Sakhare said a decision in this regard would be taken after consultations with the Central and their state governments.

About the steps taken by the state government to ensure safe quarantine of the symptomatic people, the top official said such passengers would be segregated and disembarked first, followed by other passengers (district wise) in batches of 50 persons.

Thermal scanning system have been installed at the entry itself. If someone shows heightened temperature he or she will be segregated and sent to the hospitals for formal check-up. The hospital will decide if they need to be isolated or sent to the Institutional Quarantines set up by the state government.

Ambulance for transporting symptomatic passengers to quarantine centres are ready are also ready.

Majority of the passengers coming via ship from Maldives are migrant labourers.

Before arrival in Cochin, on board the vessel, the Navy would get the self e-declaration data filled by all passengers and also identify the passengers symptomatic of COVID-19.

Another Naval ship is INS Magar is also scheduled to reach the Kochi port later in the day.

More repatriation flights

Three flights with 545 passengers from the Gulf arrived in Kochi on Saturday night as part of India's Vande Bharat Mission to bring home its nationals stranded due to the global COVID-19 lockdown.

Nine flights, including three to Kerala, had been charted for Saturday. Two more flights from Gulf countries are scheduled to arrive on Sunday evening.
The first flight to Kerala on Saturday departed from Kuwait City at 5pm India time (2:30 pm local time) with 181 passengers including 4 infants. It arrived at the Cochin International Airport at 9:26pm.

A total of 64 Air India flights and two ships are being operated as part of India's massive repatriation drive that began on Thursday to bring stranded Indians home from various countries like the UK, the UAE, the US, Maldives, Bahrain and Singapore.