Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Sunday sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s urgent intervention with the National Medical Commission and the concerned union ministries to enable and facilitate the continuance of study of medical students returning from war-torn Ukraine.

Earlier yesterday, the Chairman of the Committee on Petitions and leader of the BJD Parliamentary Party in the Rajya Sabha Prasanna Acharya had urged the union government to ascertain the cause behind the large number of Indian students going to Ukraine for medical education.

“In view of the situation in Ukraine, a large number of medical students from Odisha and other parts of India had to return back home. The disruption in their studies is likely to continue until the cessation of the hostilities and restoration of normalcy in their universities in Ukraine.

This is an unprecedented crisis that has the potential of disrupting the careers of several thousand young men and women who have already gone through the trauma of being in the war zone. Chief Minister Patnaik stated in an official letter to Prime Minister Modi

I would, therefore request for your urgent intervention with the National Medical Commission and the ministries concerned to enable and facilitate continuance of their studies in the medical colleges in India from the stage from which their studies in Ukraine have been disrupted on account of the war”, Chief Minister Patnaik stated in an official letter to Prime Minister Modi.

Patnaik also assured full support of the Odisha government for implementing a workable solution for this purpose.

The State government has so far tracked and identified 500 Odisha students pursuing their career in medicine in Ukraine. However, unofficially it is estimated that around 1700 from Odisha had headed to Ukraine for medicine study.

A senior official of the State government claimed that more than 300 of them have been relocated to safer zones. Around 200 of the stranded students have already been safely evacuated and they are back to the safety of their respective homes in Odisha, he added.