Indian Embassy issues revised standard operating procedure for chartered flights to India

The Peninsula Online – Doha:

Embassy of India in Qatar has published revised Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for chartered flights booked by community organisations and companies to take people back to India.

The revised SOP has made it mandatory that the person should be registered with the embassy and should hold an EOID number.

Some companies have been arranging chartered flights to take their employees, who are here for short term contract or those who have lost employment, back to India.

Many community organisations are also arranging flights for people who are not able to get a place in the Indian government arranged repatriation flights. ICBF, ICG, Incas Qatar and KMCC Qatar are some of the organisations that have already arranged charter flights.

The revised SOPs for chartered flights as published by the Indian Embassy:

1) The companies/community organizations who wish to organize a chartered flight need to identify a suitable charter operator/Air Transport Operator (ATO) on their own. 

2) ATOs will send a flight proposal along with the passenger manifest to the Embassy in order to obtain NOC for operating the flight. The proposal submitted by the organization should include two Annexures viz. State Clearance proforma and Passenger details in the prescribed (MEA) format. All the passengers should be registered on the Embassy website and should have an EOID number.

 3) After the NOC is issued, the passenger manifest is uploaded by the Embassy on the MEA repatriation portal after verification. 

4) Thereafter the ATO or the community organization (or company) concerned will proceed to get the state clearance in writing for the flight. The Embassy will facilitate liaison with the concerned statelevel officers for coordination purposes. The list of such officers will be shared in due course. 

5) Based on the state clearance and the Embassy’s NOC, the ATO will approach DGCA directly for flight clearance.

Note:

(i) The concerns of the state government, in terms of payment towards arrangement for institutionalized quarantine, transportation, etc. needs to be adequately addressed, wherever applicable.

(ii) A local contact person of the company or organization in the destination state needs to be shared in the proposal, and that person will be responsible for local coordination of quarantine payment arrangements etc.

(iii) The responsibility of obtaining state/DGCA clearances rests with the ATO.

(iv) The Embassy will also assist in obtaining Ministry of Interior (Mol) clearance appropriately.

(v) The details of flight departure/delay/rescheduling need to be shared with the Embassy on a real-time basis for updating on the MEA system and information of the concerned authorities in the Government of India and the state authorities.

Source: thepeninsulaqatar