Water crisis: India sends planes, ships to Maldives

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, December 5

The Indian Navy and Indian Air Force today dispatched drinking water to the Maldives following a crisis of drinking water in the island nation.

Maldives has reverse osmosis desalination plants which developed a snag and the country sent an SOS to New Delhi. The plant converts sea-water into drinking water. The island nation is 700 km south-west of Kerala.

Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj received a call from the Maldives for assistance late on Thursday night and she worked through to get clearances from the Prime Minister and leveraged the Ministry of Defence.

The immediate drinking water needs have been met and 200 tonnes of bottled water has reached Maldives. The IAF dispatched two of its C-17 heavy transporters from Palam and three of the IL-76 transporters from Chandigarh. These can carry 76 tonnes and 43 tonnes of payload, respectively. The planes carrying bottled water landed in batches at Male.

The first plane IL-76 took off for the Maldives at 7.30 am from Chandigarh. Another five flights carrying equal amount of water will be sent tomorrow, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said.

The Navy has dispatched INS Sukanya which has two reverse osmosis plants on board producing 40 tonnes of drinking water. The warship was already deployed in the Indian Ocean and diverted to the Maldives.

Besides, fleet tanker INS Deepak, designed to carry provisions for the naval fleet carrying another 800 tonnes of drinking water, is being readied.

The reverse osmosis plant supply drinking water to Male has developed a problem and could take up to a week to restore the supply, Akbaruddin said adding that India’s assistance was to a close partner and a member-country of SAARC in its hour of need.