Priority to Indians needing to travel urgently when flights resume: Envoy

Muscat: Indian nationals in Oman who need to travel due to an emergency will be the first to be offered the chance to fly home, once flights to India are resumed.
According to India’s Ambassador to Oman, Munu Mahawar, depending on the availability of seats on planes and the urgency with which Indian expats need to fly home. However, no travel to India will be allowed, unless an announcement has first been made by the Indian government.
To provide a central location for all those in Oman who wish to travel to India, the Embassy of India has created a Google form in which people can provide their contact details, as well as their reasons for needing to fly. The link to this form is available on the embassy’s social media pages.
“The reason we’ve put up this form is because we were getting a lot of queries,” explained the ambassador. “However, right now, the resumption of flights is not due. We have to wait for a decision on this matter, as it is under consideration from the Government of India. As and when a decision is taken to resume flights, that is when we will use this information to arrange returns to India. However, at present, we are unable to provide any time frame as to when this will happen.”
“At the same time, we do not want people to keep checking this matter with us again and again,” he added. “Those who wish to travel can have their data stored with us, as it will then be easier for us to contact them once flights have resumed. In many cases, we were receiving this data from them through emails and on the telephone, so we thought this form would make it easier for us to collect this in one centralised location.”
The ambassador added that an announcement regarding the resumption of flights would be made as soon as it was communicated to them. In the case of there being a fixed number of planes flying to India, preference would be given to those who needed to travel home on moral grounds.
“It is a bit premature to say how this resumption will take place, but if this is going to be a limited resumption, then priority will be given to those people who have to go home in an emergency, or those who have to go urgently. It is not that those who have registered with us through this form will only get seats on planes. We will also need to look at this from the perspective of morality, and take into account all the requests that have been made by people who need to travel home,” said Mahawar. “It is now, however, premature to talk about morality, but we will announce the resumption of flights as soon as a decision has been taken.”