A team of 30 Indian officials is guiding Operation Ganga from a small Budapest hotel: Report

According to an ANI report, Rajiv Bodwade, Deputy Chief of the mission from Israel on special duty in Budapest said initially there were just a few students but gradually their number started rising and "called for an organised structure in place. We had managed to get more than 150 volunteers but a collated effort was needed."

"We set up a command centre. Our teams at the border would tell us how many people had crossed over and how many would be coming to the city based on which we did the calculation in the command centre," Bodwade was quoted as saying by ANI.

Teams were divided into four key verticals: transportation, accommodation, food, and flights, he informed while saying that there are more than 150 volunteers helping them.

"The first vertical would oversee transportation because people were using various means, including railways, roads, and some were even walked on foot. So we would arrange for them to travel from borders to the where they were to be put up for temporary accommodations. The second vertical would be responsible for finding accommodation for which more than 40 locations were identified," he said, according to the report.

He further told ANI that arranging for food three times a day for the students was also a major challenge.

"Over the last few days, we arranged for food for more than 2,000 people. We have to act very swiftly since there could be a change of multiple locations and that was a prime responsibility for our food team which is our third vertical," he said.

Till students board flights, the task will not be over, said Bodwade, adding that it was the fourth vertical at the airport that would oversee the same.

"Our team at the airport tells us how many flights are there at the airport and how many people can be sent and at what time," explained Bodwade, stated the report.

The ANI report said, several other officers just like Bodwade, have been called in from neighbouring countries on special duty by the Indian embassy to join efforts in one of India's biggest evacuation efforts.

A core team comprising nearly 30 officials, including former envoy Kumar Tuhin, has been set up to oversee the whole exercise as an officer on special duty,

The core team in the command centre comprises six members and for coordination with a team of 10-15 who lead volunteer teams, according to the report.

Lauding the selfless contributions of volunteers, Rajiv said, "Selfless volunteers have been working round-the-clock including some of them having taken leave from their jobs working with just three hours of sleep so now we are working like a well-oiled machinery."

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has dispatched four special envoys to the countries from where Indians have been evacuated.

Four cabinet ministers Jyotiraditya Scindia, Kiran Rijiju, General (Retd) VK Singh, and Hardeep Singh Puri have been on the job. 
Hardeep Puri, a former diplomat, has been stationed in Hungary to coordinate their efforts to evacuate Indian students here.

Nearly 13,300 people came back to India from Ukraine till now on 63 flights under 'Operation Ganga', Ministery of External Affairs said on Saturday.

A total of 15 flights have landed in the last 24 hours with around 2,900 people onboard.