Under the Vande Bharat Mission, 64 flights and three Navy ships would be operated to bring home nearly 15,000 Indians stranded overseas.
New Delhi| On Thursday, India’s extensive Vande Bharat Mission to bring stranded Indians back began in the wake of COVID-19 crisis.
National carrier Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express, on the first day, operated flights to UAE and Singapore from Cochin, Kerala and New Delhi.
Carrying 181 people from Abu Dhabi, the first flight of the mission landed in Kochi around 10 pm on Thursday. The second flight from Dubai with 182 passengers landed in Kozhikode about 20 minutes later.
As the passengers arrived from the flight, many were seen wiping tears.
These were the first of 64 flights that the two airlines will operate from May 7-13 to bring back 15,000 stranded Indians from 12 countries.
Indian nationals stranded in Singapore were brought back to India in a special Air India aircraft under the ‘Vande Bharat Mission’. They deboarded at the Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi and were accustomed to security checks.
Flight no. AI381 from Singapore has landed in Delhi.
Welcome home.Thank @airindiain @MoCA_GoI, Bureau of Immigration and Delhi Government for cooperation and support.
Appreciate the exemplary effort of Team @IndiainSingapor led by HC @JawedAshraf5
— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) May 8, 2020
Also Read: Goods Train Runs Over 15 Migrants While Returning Home in Maharashtra’s Aurangabad
A special Air India flight carrying Indian students stranded in Bangladesh due to the COVID-19 linked global travel restraints left for home on Friday, officials said.
The Indian nationals stranded in Bahrain, UAE, USA, Malaysia, Kuwait, and Singapore will be airlifted on Friday
From the 64 flights, 15 would land in Kerala, 11 each to Delhi and Tamil Nadu, seven each to Maharashtra and Telangana, and the rest to Gujarat, Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, and Uttar Pradesh.
As an independent media platform, we do not take advertisements from governments and corporate houses. It is you, our readers, who have supported us on our journey to do honest and unbiased journalism. Please contribute, so that we can continue to do the same in future.
