The Odisha government, on March 4, claimed that no student from the state is left in the war zones of Ukraine now. The government claimed that while some are on their way to Lviv, many others have either flown to India or are awaiting safe borders to board flights.
State Resident Commissioner at New Delhi, Ravi Kant, told The New Indian Express that as per the information available with the state government, all Odisha students who were in Kharkiv, Kyiv and Pesochyn have been evacuated as of March 4. “We made a special arrangement of two more buses on the day and evacuated all the students,” he said. The students are being taken to Lviv from where they will reach the Poland border. With the situation in Sumy located close to the Russian border being a concern, Kant said the state government has not yet come across information regarding the presence of any Odisha students in the Ukrainian town.
“Currently, we do not have any data about Sumy. If someone has any information about Odisha students stranded in Sumy, they can inform us about their coordinates and we will try and take them out. In the next two to three days, all our students will be out of Ukraine,” he asserted. The Resident Commissioner added that there are no students in Odessa.
According to a release issued by the state government, out of the 500 Odisha students identified to be studying in Ukraine, around 400 have been moved to safer zones. Of these 400, 380 students have crossed the borders from Ukraine into Poland, Romania, Hungary and Slovakia. As many as 138 students have already arrived in India from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Kandhamal MP Achyuta Samanta urged the Centre to formulate a special strategy for the Ukraine returnee students. As the war between Russia and Ukraine is unlikely to be over soon, the education of the rescued students is at stake now.
“Both Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have left no stone unturned to bring Indian nationals back from Ukraine. I would request them to urgently deal with the next problem of academics of the students,” he said. There are 605 medical colleges in India, of which 325 are in the private sector. He urged the Prime Minister and Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya to come up with a concrete policy for distributing the students to different medical colleges in India.
“On an average, each college will have to take into its fold 30 students spread across first to fifth year and internship. It won’t create any extra burden on the infrastructure. It will fall well within the norms and standards of the existing medical colleges without any violation. I also request to see that the fees charged to students should be on par with government colleges. The modalities to facilitate such an arrangement can be decided and worked on by the National Medical Council and Ministry of Health,” he suggested.
