* Vande Bharat Mission reaches new milestone - of having taken more than 10,000 stranded Indians back home
* Overall, nearly 37,000 people have been repatriated to India on VBM and chartered flights so far


The Indian embassy has published a list of 17 additional flights this month under the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM).

The embassy had earlier announced 51 flights in Part 1 of the fourth phase of VBM, running from July 7 until 23.

The date has now been extended by a day, until July 24, according to the new list.

The additional 17 repatriation flights include four to Mumbai, three each to Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru, and one flight to Kochi.

All the flights are to be operated by IndiGo.

Meanwhile, the embassy advised people seeking repatriation not to buy tickets for places far from their hometown.

"While buying tickets online for forthcoming VBM flights, please do not buy tickets for destinations far away from your home state or hometown. You are likely to face additional difficulties regarding quarantine procedures and costs, in addition to transport to your hometown," the embassy tweeted on Thursday.

Earlier, the embassy had advised people to "please book seats on these flights directly online (IndiGo website) with your EOID number".

With more flights departing for different Indian destinations from Hamad International Airport (HIA) on Thursday, the Vande Bharat Mission from Qatar reached a new milestone - of having taken more than 10,000 stranded Indians back home.

Flight 6E 8708 took off for Kozhikode with 172 passengers and two infants, while 6E 8759 left for Mumbai with 203 passengers. Later, 6E 8711 took off from HIA for Kannur with 173 passengers.

These were the 55th, 56th and 57th flights, respectively, from Doha under VBM, "bringing the total number of repatriated passengers to 10,086", the embassy said.

The embassy also tweeted that it has so far facilitated some 230 repatriation flights from Qatar, including VBM as well as chartered (community- and company-hired) flights. Nearly 37,000 Indians have been repatriated so far on these flights.





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