Chennai: Indian Navy Ship ‘Jalashwa’ has repatriated 700 stranded Indians from Maldives as part of ongoing ‘Samudra Setu’ mission by the Union government.
The ship left Port of Male, Maldives at 9.30 pm Saturday night and arrived at VOC Port in Tuticorin at 9 am Sunday morning. Among the 700 Indians disembarked at the VOC Port, 655 were menand 45 women.
All the passengers were screened by the Port Health Officials and their luggages sanitised. On issue of PPE kits, the passengers were boarded into 25 waiting buses and transited to Passenger terminal, where self-declaration forms were obtained from them.
They asked to download and configure ‘AarogyaSetu’ app in their smartphones using the free Wi-fi provided by the Port Authority after which immigration and Customs formalities were completed. They passenger later left for their respective destinations.
This is the second call by INS Jalashwa to VOC Port. Earlierit repatriated 686 Indians from Colombo on 2 June, Port Trust Chairman T K Ramachandran said.