Andaman & Nicobar students in Kota yet to find way home

JAIPUR: While most of the coaching students in Kota have returned to their home states, 25 students from Andaman and Nicobar Islands see no hope of returning soon. Their repeated requests to the Central government for airlifting them have yielded no response.
Port Blair resident K Nitisha (19) living in a hostel in Kunhari area of Kota is under stress seeing all her friends go to their respective states.
"Every state behaved responsibly by sending buses or trains for their children, but in our case the government has not even responded to out repeated letters," said Nitisha. With the rise in Covid-19 numbers, she is losing hope to unite with her parents and elder sister in the near future.
Andaman and Nicobar islands, a Union territory, is around 2,800km from Kota. So far, it has not recorded a single case. Right next to her room lives Kriti Paul (19), who came from Port Blair in August 2019 with a dream to clear her medical entrance test, checks her email several times a day to see any response from the government. "The evacuation of students from other states have become possible as they had approached their political leaders and governments which had listened to them and acted. In our case, we have no national leader who can be approached for our evacuation," said disappointed Paul. Both live in Shayan Residency hostel which had 40 students until a week back now has seven students as the rest had been united with their families. All these students are connected with each other and helped connect their parents in the island to make joint efforts.
These students generally take a flight from Port Blair to Delhi and reach Kota via train or bus. Back in the island, their parents are doing all they can to bring their wards. Sudhir Biswas, a father of a stranded son in Kota, has offered to pay the expenses for a chartered flight from Jaipur to Port Blair.