Chandigarh, Feb 26 (PTI) To ensure every possible help to distressed families, Punjab Chief Secretary Anirudh Tewari on Saturday reviewed the status of calls received on the state government's dedicated 24x7 control room set-up to assist the people stuck in Ukraine after Russia's invasion.

He directed all deputy commissioners, commissioners of police and SSPs to immediately update the data with passport numbers of all the stranded people to ascertain how many are actually stuck there.

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Chairing a high-level meeting at his office here, the chief secretary urged the affected people and their relatives to immediately contact Punjab government's helpline numbers 1100 (to call from within Punjab) and +91-172-4111905 (to call from outside India).

He said they have received 155 calls so far in the control room and the queries are being immediately forwarded to the Union Ministry of External Affairs for safe and secure evacuation of the Indians stranded in in the eastern European country.

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Tewari also asked Punjab Resident Commissioner Rakhee Gupta Bhandari to set up a state help-desk at the New Delhi airport to assist people returning from Ukraine, besides coordinating for their safe travel home, an official statement said.

The chief secretary appealed to the parents and relatives of those stranded to ask them not to move to any border posts without prior coordination with Government of India officials and to strictly follow the guidelines of the MEA and the Indian embassy .

The Punjab government on Friday set up a dedicated round-the-clock control room to help people from the state who are stuck up in Ukraine following a Russian military offensive, even as Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi wrote to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, requesting immediate arrangements for safe evacuation of the Indians, including Punjabis.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)