With four lakh Indian nationals still registered with Indian missions across the world to be brought back home, the Centre on Thursday started Phase 3 of its Vande Bharat mission, the country's largest ever effort to bring back its nationals from foreign shores. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in lakhs of students, tourists and travellers being stuck in various countries. It also led to job losses and many of these migrant workers, too, wanted to return home.
Ever since the mission was launched on May 7, a total of 1,65,373 Indians have returned home. While Air India flew special flights to various destinations, over 61,000 returned through land borders with Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. In addition, the Indian Navy deployed two ships, INS Jalashwa and INS Magar, to the Maldives and Sri Lanka. INS Shardul has just reached Porbandar with 233 Indians from Bandar Abbas in Iran.
Phase 3 of the Vande Bharat mission will continue till July 2 and will comprise 432 international flights from 42 countries to 17 Indian states and Union territories. In addition to the national carrier, 29 flights will be operated by private airlines --Indigo (24), GoAir (3) and Vistara (2).
The bulk of flights will continue to be from the GCC countries --170. There will also be 53 more flights from the US and another 24 from Canada. Sixteen flights each are scheduled from Paris and Frankfurt both of which have been designated as hubs for the Europe leg of repatriation. The government is using the hub and spoke model at both ends. Africa will get focus during the third phase with flights from six African nations being planned.
In addition to these special charters, Indians have also been brought back on flights operated by other nations to take back their nationals from India. There are also some private charters in operation.
Meanwhile, over 99,000 nationals from 113 countries, who were stranded in India when the country went into lockdown in March, have been repatriated to their homes over the last two and a half months.