Hyderabad, Mar 25 (PTI) Observing that the civil aviation sector also has an important humanistic element to it, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday hailed 'Operation Ganga', the recent evacuation of Indian nationals from war-hit Ukraine, and thanked officials, airline companies, pilots and other stakeholders who helped in successfully conducting the mission.

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Whenever there has been a cause of national calamity or an evacuation plan, it is the civil aviation sector that has been at the forefront of that endeavour, Scindia said. "... civil aviation also has a very important humanistic element to it," he said.

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"We have recently seen that with Operation Ganga where, probably, the largest evacuation programme run by any government from a civil aviation point of view, has been successfully completed," he said, speaking at a ministerial plenary in the ongoing Wings India 2022 here, the largest civil aviation event in Asia.

Scindia said 23,000 Indian people from Ukraine have been evacuated from five neighbouring countries of Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and Poland.

The minister thanked various stakeholders in civil aviation, including the authorities concerned, airline companies, pilots, crew and others who made the operation possible.

He urged those present in the hall to stand up and give them a round of applause for their effort.

Nepal's Minister for Civil Aviation Prem Bahadur Ale, Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan, Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala, Arunachal Pradesh Civil Aviation Minister Nakap Nalo, Telangana Roads and Buildings Minister Vemula Prashant Reddy attended the session.

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