Delhi airport, which is one of the biggest airports in the country handled more than 20 million pieces of essential medical supplies in the last three months of the nation-wide lockdown (April to June). According to the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), these imported medical kits were distributed across the country which contained face masks (10.3 million), gloves (6.2 million), goggles (4.9 million), bodysuits (1.9 million), shoe covers (1.4 million) and ventilators (250).
Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO, DIAL, said,” In this challenging time, DIAL has played a very crucial role in the fight against Covid-19 by round the clock handling of international and domestic cargo movement. We ensured that essential medical kits reached not only in the big cities but in far-flung destinations of the country. In collaboration with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and all its stakeholders, DIAL is committed to serve this great nation.” Earlier, the Ministry of Civil Aviation had designated Delhi Airport as a hub for import and distribution of essential medical supplies for the fight against COVID-19.
The airport was able to handle these medical essentials with the help of its teams working round the clock at its cargo terminals and also set up a 3,800 sq. m. facility within a record time of 7 days. Innovative procedures were adopted to store these medical import cargos in separate export zones while strictly following the norms of social distancing, sanitisation and safety issued by the Indian government. In addition to essential medical supplies, Delhi Airport also acted as a hub in supporting the Central government’s flagship initiative ‹KRISHI UDAN› in the current challenging time by transporting agricultural products to international and domestic markets.
India resumed domestic passenger flights from 25 May after a gap of two months due to the Coronavirus triggered lockdown. Scheduled international passenger flights still continue to remain suspended. Meanwhile, cargo flights have been operating during the lockdown period as usual.