Over 6,000 Indians stranded abroad have been flown back home on 31 flights operated by Air India and Air India Express under Vande Bharat Mission in five days beginning on May 7, officials said yesterday.
The government launched the mission - one of the largest initiatives to repatriate Indian nationals - in co-operation with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, the Ministry of External Affairs and state governments.
“Air India, along with its subsidiary Air India Express, are operating a total of 64 flights to 12 countries including
the US, UK Bangladesh, Qatar and Singapore to repatriate 14,800 Indians back in the first phase,” the Civil Aviation Ministry said in a statement.
Yesterday, the second evacuation flight to Karnataka landed in Bengaluru from Singapore with 177 returnees, an official said.
Of the passengers, 42 alighted, while the remaining 135 were on onward journey to Kochi.
Three more repatriation flights are due to land in Bengaluru from Jeddah, San Francisco and Singapore on May 13-15 with over 600 state citizens.
“One more Air India Express flight from Dubai with 177 passengers landed at the Mangaluru airport at 10,.4pm,” the official added.
Also yesterday, An Air India flight with 331 passengers from Britain landed at the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport in Hyderabad early yesterday.
It later took off with another 87 passengers for Delhi, from where they will be flown to the US.
It was the fourth to land in Hyderabad under Vande Bharat Mission.
The Hyderabad airport has so far handled four evacuation flights from the US, the UK, Kuwait and the UAE that evacuated over 750 Indian citizens.
Meanwhile, a second batch of 169 Kashmiri students from Bangladesh arrived in Srinagar by a special flight yesterday.
The process of bringing back Kashmiri medical students stranded in Bangladesh started last week.
On Friday, 167 medical students returned from Dhaka on the first flight.
lAs part of Operation Samudra Setu, Indian Naval ship INS Magar, carrying 202 Indian nationals from Maldives, docked in Kochi port yesterday evening.
This is the second evacuation from the Maldives by the Indian Navy - the first was INS Jalashwa which brought 698 passengers.
Among the passengers were 24 women and two children.
Meanwhile, INS Jalashwa will undertake its second evacuation of around 700 Indian nationals from Male to Kochi on Friday.

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