Uncertainty over the resumption of flights from India to the UAE looms large, despite the Narendra Modi administration putting its best foot forward, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sources have told Khaleej Times, requesting anonymity.
Last week, India’s Minister of External Affairs Dr Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his deputy V Muraleedharan held meetings with Indian envoys to six GCC nations, including the UAE, where the resumption of flights topped the agenda, sources said.
The UAE has suspended flights from India since April 24, following a second and lethal wave of the Covid-19 outbreak.
In a similar move, on May 13, it also suspended entry for passengers from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, who, along with Indians, comprise 70 per cent of the workforce in the country, and the travel ban is in place at least till July 21, it was announced on Monday.
The MEA authorities said constant efforts have been made over the past few weeks to impress the need to resume flights upon the respective governments in GCC nations.
However, several of these countries remain concerned on account of the mutant Delta variant, the aftershocks of which are being felt across the world, including in India.
To make matters worse, GCC authorities are also apprehensive about surging viral infections in Kerala, a state which accounts for over 60 per cent of Indian expatriates to the UAE and the wider region.
Concerns abound regarding an uptick in the ‘R’ factor, or reproduction rate, of Covid-19 in Maharashtra and Kerala amid fears of another round of a viral outbreak wave in these states, which could quickly become a nationwide spike of the contagion.
The UAE and GCC authorities are keeping a close tab on the pattern of the contagion in India’s remote and sparsely populated north-eastern states.