Amid concerns over the safety of 18,000 Indians in violence-hit Libya, companies like BHEL, Punj Lloyd, D S Constructions and Unitech Infra today said their employees in the North African country are safe.
The companies said that some of them have already been evacuated, while efforts are on to bring others back safely and they are in touch with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on the issue.
Punj Lloyd said in a statement that "the company has been assured safety and security of its employees and assets in Libya".
"We are in constant touch with the Indian Embassy in Libya and with the MEA in India to enable our employees to return to India safely," the company said.
Reports suggested that Punj Lloyd has large presence in the violence-hit country with around 1,800 employees and projects of about $1.8 billion.
D S Constructions, another major company having large scale operations in Libya, declined to comment on the evacuation plan and said that MEA officials are looking into the issue. The company is estimated to have employed around 6,000 Indians for its Libya operations.
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According to the company website, it has executed over 200 major projects and built over 2,000 km of high quality roads in violence-hit country. This includes building 28 storied Al Fateh Tower in Tripoli.
BHEL, which has been constructing a 900 Mw gas-based power plant in that country, said their seven employees are in Libya and efforts are on to bring them back safely.
"We have seven employees in Libya. They are still there and are absolutely safe. BHEL is in constant touch with the MEA for their safe evacuation and we will act as per government's directions," a top company official said.
The official added that the power plant is in the final stages of construction, due to which most of the company staffers were back to India even before unrest broke out in Libya.
The government today decided to evacuate immediately the Indians and said that a ship has already been sent to Benghazi port to ferry about 1,200 people, given sharp and unprecedented deterioration in the situation of the North African country.
Aircraft have been also kept on stand by as the government is expecting to get landing permission soon there.
Unitech Infra, which has about 80 employees in the country, said that families of all the staff have been safely evacuated and efforts are on to bring back all the employees safely.
"The employees are still there. The MEA and Indian Embassy (in Libya) have been very supportive and we are working with them to evacuate them at the earliest. We are in constant contact with our employees," a company spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that the business impact of this development will be very low as the Libya operations is a small part of their power transmission business.
State-run Oil India is the operator of two exploration blocks in Western Libya. The blocks, where Indian Oil Corp was an equal partner, had turned out to be dry and OIL had decided to relinquish them.
"We were in the process of surrendering the blocks when the unrest broke out in Libya. Two-three OIL personnel are stuck in Libyan capital of Tripoli. They are safe and we are trying to evacuate them as soon as possible," a senior company official had said on Wednesday.
OIL, in consortium with Indian Oil had won the blocks in the Libyan Exploration and Production Service Agreement (EPSA IV) Bid Round I in 2004.