The Gujarat government will deploy grief counsellors to support the families of those who lost their lives in the Ahmedabad Air India plane crash, a senior official confirmed. Gujarat Relief Commissioner and Revenue Secretary Alok Pandey informed the media on Saturday that 230 dedicated teams have been formed to coordinate with the victims’ families.
To streamline administrative procedures, the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation will issue death certificates on the spot. “The village patwari can then immediately issue a family relation card so that they do not face any inheritance issue,” Pandey explained.
Each affected family has been assigned a dedicated team, led by an officer of deputy collector or tehsildar rank. Once identified, the bodies will be handed over to the respective families and transported to their native village or district in ambulances accompanied by a police escort, he added.
“A grief counsellor will be assigned to every family to deal with the mental trauma,” Pandey said.
Authorities have established contact with the families of 11 foreign nationals, most of whom are from the UK. “One entire team has been set up for the foreign nationals. We have contacted the Deputy British Consul General. Our deputy collector-rank officer is in touch with them. The MEA (Ministry of External Affairs), Air India are in touch with them,” he stated.
Tragically, all but one of the 242 passengers and crew aboard the Boeing 787-8 (AI171) were killed, along with 29 people on the ground — including five MBBS students — when the aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. The plane went down inside the nearby campus of the state-run BJ Medical College.