The Indian embassy on Thursday said it is "trying to work out a mechanism for the return of Indian citizens holding resident permits who wish to travel to Qatar".

"Avoid booking tickets in anticipation," the embassy tweeted. "Kindly keep following our social media handles for updates on the same."

Qatar has allowed the return of residents stuck abroad from this month, provided they have obtained the necessary entry permit from the Qatar Portal website.

The government has also laid down quarantine rules for those returning to Qatar, which vary depending on where they are coming from - low-risk countries or elsewhere. India is not on the list of low-risk countries as of now.

Now, with Qatar allowing the return of residents, it is learnt that some airlines and travel agents are accepting bookings - on chartered and other special flights - from people who want to come back to the country from different parts of India.

The Indian government has been running the Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) to repatriate Indians stranded around the world, including in Qatar.

Thousands of people have been repatriated to India from Qatar under this initiative. Besides, a large number of people have also returned to India on chartered flights hired by companies or community organisations.

The mission continued on Thursday as AI 1946 took off from Hamad International Airport (HIA) for Amritsar with 142 passengers, followed by 6E 8719, which left for Hyderabad with 209 adults and four infants. Then, IX 1576 took off from HIA for Thiruvananthapuram with 112 adults and two infants. These marked the 155th, 156th and 157th flights from Doha under VBM, respectively, "bringing the total number of repatriated passengers to 27,793 plus 492 infants", the embassy said.


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