The government of Kuwait has decided that it will resume international airlines, which have been closed for the last three and a half months, from August 1.
The Kuwait government announced on Thursday morning that Kuwaiti citizens and expatriates residing in countries other than India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Iran and the Philippines, except those coming from August 1, can move.
The Indian Ministry of External Affairs is aware of this ban imposed on Indian citizens and is trying to resolve the matter at the administrative level.
Kuwait rule that eight lakh Indians will have to come back
Family concerns
The decision of the Kuwait government makes Indians and their families working there worried.
Varshney Pratap Narayan, who works at the Indian construction company Larsen & Toubro, came to his home from Kuwait in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh in February and has been stuck here since then, and now this new issue has arisen.
Varshney says, “I have a flight book from Delhi on August 4, before which I have to go from Gorakhpur to Lucknow and do the Kovid-19 (PCR) test and now this confusion has arisen.”
Varshney Pratap Narayan, an electrical engineer by profession, says that he is ‘without pay’ for the last four months and it is clear that he wants the issue resolved at the earliest.
Rajpal Tyagi, president of India Community Support Group, told Kuwait over phone that the decision would lead to the loss of jobs for thousands of people who have been stranded in India due to the epidemic, there are hundreds of families whose few people remain in Kuwait and Some have been trapped by going to India, and now they all want to come back.
Rajpal Tyagi says that people who have gone back on vacation cannot go to their jobs, many people have their visa on expiry, if they do not come then it will be canceled, businessman’s license to work here is associated with visa. Due to the cancellation of one, the other will also end, there is a family matter whose mental pressure can be understood that in many cases the husband is trapped in India and the wife is here.
India Community Support Group met Kuwait Embassy officials on Monday in this connection.
On Tuesday, they have also written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Aviation in this regard and have appealed to the government to restore air services to Kuwait from India.
It is understood from the sources present in Kuwait and the statements of the Government of India that a major reason for the ban on the entry of Indian citizens may also be the infighting between the two countries, India and Kuwait on the flight of aircraft.
Kuwait banned international airlines in mid-March in the wake of the Corona epidemic, but in the recent two months some flights were allowed to return or transport stranded workers back to their countries. These included flights of the Vanda Bharat Mission launched by the Government of India.
Now Kuwait’s airlines are also trying to restore flight services with India but that is not possible due to some reasons.
However, in this regard, negotiations are on for mutual flights agreements between the Secretary of the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry and the Kuwait Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Ministry says that this will be resolved soon.
Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman Anurag Shrivastava has said that this is a temporary ban which is not imposed only on India and the Ministry of Civil Aviation is trying to resolve the matter.
