UK expects first batch of 3 million paracetamol packets from India soon

The UK on Friday expressed its gratitude to the Indian government as the first batch of three million paracetamol packets is all set to reach in Britain within 48 hours after New Delhi lifted its export ban amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Lord Tariq Ahmad, the Minister of State for South Asia and the Commonwealth within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), stated the shipment is symbolic of the cooperative manner both nations have been running through this unprecedented worldwide crisis.

“The UK and India retain to work in near partnership to reply to the COVID-19 threat. My thanks on behalf of the UK authorities to India for approving this essential cargo,” Ahmad stated.

The cargo, set to arrive on a plane by Sunday, will coincide with a chain of charter flights laid on through the UK authorities to ferry thousands of British residents stranded in India’s coronavirus lockdown.

“We have been operating very closely with the Indian authorities, here on the Indian High Commission in London, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), and at state degree in India to a position in the region all the requirements for British nationals looking to return to the UK,” Ahmad said.

“The sheer logistics of this exercising entails every people who have registered on to our imperative database being despatched detailed statistics approximately booking their seat at the flights in addition to a local guide for them so one can get to the airports within the specific states, given the lockdown and curfews in the vicinity,” he stated.

The travellers are set to be flown out from Goa, Mumbai, Delhi, Amritsar, Ahmedabad, Thiruvanantha through Kochi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Chennai through Bengaluru over the coming week. They might be checked for any signs of the novel coronavirus earlier than being allowed to board the constitution flights, and on landing in the UK, they may be subject to the identical self-isolation and social distancing stipulations as to the different UK-citizen based citizens, the FCO said.

An anticipated 21,000 British residents are currently in India, of which around 5,000 are set to be repatriated over this weekend and the following week with a complete of 19 charter flights showed between the different towns of India back to London. Passengers are given a chance to book on to these flights at a standard 600-650 pound rate, with those facing financial difficulties allowed to access an interest-free loan to be paid back over six months.

The British High Commission in New Delhi has stated that it is prioritising the extra vulnerable inside the nationals registered on its database wanting to return to the UK. The charter flights introduced so far are predicted to make “critical inroads” into repatriating the big numbers stranded in India, with a stop of April target set for getting the majority back to the UK.