Direct flights between London and Ahmedabad will start in end of November this year, sources from Delhi have revealed. It is believed that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will announce this direct flight during his visit to the UK from 12-14 November 2015. According to the sources, there will be four flights from London Heathrow to Ahmedabad, that will leave London at 9 am, reach Ahmedabad at 10:30pm on the same day, whereas it will leave Ahmedabad at 2am, reaching Heathrow at 6am on the same day.
Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar started the direct flight campaign 14 years ago. After which, Air India started direct flights with 2 flights every week in 2003. It increased to 4 flights per week. Even Jet Airways started a flight in 2004. All of a sudden with the change of government in New Delhi, the direct flights were stopped without any formal notice. Innumerable readers and members of the community approached our newsweeklies for help. Hearing their plight, Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar newsweeklies with NCGO (UK) immediately started a petition, asking the diaspora to come forward and sign the petition to restart direct flights between London Heathrow and Ahmedabad. They pointed out that the worse sufferers were elderly, pregnant women, families with small children, people with health problems especially disabled people, those on wheelchair, who have to disembark and embark at Mumbai/Delhi or any other airport in the Middle East with their hand luggage etc to change flights and wait long hours. Over 18,000 petitions were collected.
Prominent politicians, including British MPs, Peers, Councillors and leaders of various organisations and businesses in Britain, late Ashok Bhatt, Speaker of Gujarat Assembly, Shri Jaynarayan Vyas, Senior Minister of Gujarat government, Shri Dinsha Patel, Minister of State in the Central government, Shri Sidharth Patel, President of Gujarat Pradesh Congress Committee, Shri Shakti Singh Gohil, Leader of the Opposition in the Gujarat Assembly, former ministers and senior MPs including Shri Haren Pathak, President of Gujarat state, NCP Jayant Patel (Boski), Pradip C Jadeja, the Chief Whip of Government of Gujarat and many others who themselves have experienced the hardships, signed the petition in support of this campaign.
In 2010, Gujarat Samachar News Editor Kamal Rao and Rupanjana Dutta, now Asian Voice Associate Editor along with NCGO (UK) leaders handed over the petitions to the Air India office. CB Patel, the Publisher/Editor of Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar was then the Chairman of NCGO (UK). Despite of running innumerable petitions and articles, the direct flight failed to ply.
In 2012, Manoj Ladwa, a London-based political strategist and Mr Modi's director of communications during India's general election along with veteran actor and now MP, Paresh Rawal handed over several thousands of fresh petitions along with support letters from various British MPs, Peers, local councillors, Indian MPs and MLAs delivered to Mr Modi's office (as Chief Minister) in Gujarat. While CB remained the drive behind this petition for the people of his community, Bhupadrai Parikh took up the baton in India to drive this mission.
In 2013, CB on a 7 days visit to Gujarat, organised a dinner at Fortune Inn Hotel in Gandhinagar, where eminent personalities, Ministers from the government and Opposition MLAs/MPs were present, who discussed the direct flight issue at length.
In 2015, when Mr Arun Jaitley, the Finance Minister of India came to the UK to inaugurate Gandhi statue at the Parliament Square, the issues of the direct flight was raised with the Minister. There was a point when during Prabasi Bharatiya Divas in India, a Minister announced the flights would resume shortly, but the plan never materialised.
After much persuasion, including letters to PM Modi and current Chief Minister of Gujarat, Ms Anandiben Patel, three months back, Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar learnt that Mr Modi is considering reinstating the direct flight between London and Ahmedabad. It is a well known fact that NaMo thinks of the needs of diaspora very closely, already offering Indian e-visas to NRIs and direct flights between California and India.
While many others are claiming the credit to have made this direct flight possible, Asian Voice and Gujarat Samachar are pleased to announce to their readers, that finally all their efforts have bore fruits. The readers who have been on this journey with our newspapers, should now celebrate this occasion and get ready to book their family holiday tickets with 'baa and baba' (grandmother and babies) soon.
