India is launching its biggest ever evacuation exercise in decades christened ‘Vande Bharat Mission’, deploying a raft of civilian aircraft and naval ships to bring back home thousands of Indians stranded in the Gulf and various other parts of the world.

The largest-ever civilian evacuation was carried out by India in 1990 during the first Gulf war — between Iraq and Kuwait — when almost 1.7 lakh Indian nationals were brought by air from Kuwait.

Air India will operate 64 repatriation flights for a week from May 7 while the Navy deployed two ships as India rolled out a massive evacuation plan to bring back thousands of its nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation will see the state-owned airline operate the non-scheduled commercial flights till May 13 to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.

Those availing the repatriation flights will be charged, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. He added that private Indian airlines may join the repatriation effort after May 13.

The government also issued a standard operating protocol (SOP) for the return of the stranded Indians.

In an order, Union home secretary Ajay Bhalla said priority will be given to compelling cases in distress including migrant workers, labourers who have been laid off and those faced with expiry of short term visas. Persons with medical emergency, pregnant women, elderly, those required to return to India due to death of family member, and students will also be given preference, the home ministry said.

The 64 Air India flights will be landing in 10 Indian states — 15 in Kerala, 11 each in Tamil Nadu and Delhi, seven each in Maharashtra and Telangana, five in Gujarat, three each in Karnataka and Jammu & Kashmir and one flight each in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh.

The flights would be operated by Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express to repatriate Indians from 12 countries — the UAE, the UK, the US, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman, Puri said

Out of this, 10 flights will be to the UAE, seven flights each to the US and the UK, five flights to Saudi Arabia, five flights to Singapore and two flights to Qatar to repatriate Indian nationals between May 7 and May 13, he added.

During this period, seven flights each will be operated to Malaysia and Bangladesh, five flights each to Kuwait and Philippines, two flights each to Oman and Bahrain.

According to an official statement, only people showing no symptoms of COVID-19 will be allowed to travel and on reaching the destination they would also have to register for ‘Aarogya Setu’ app, a digital contact tracing initiative.

After arrival in India, their medical examination will be conducted and they will be subsequently put under quarantine for 14 days, either in a hospital or in an institutional facility, also on payment basis, the statement said. COVID-19 test would be done after 14 days and further action would be taken according to health protocols, it said.

The government has already evacuated about 2,500 stranded Indians from China, Japan, Iran and Italy in the last couple of months after the outbreak of coronavirus in those countries.

Indian Navy launches operation Samudra Setu

Indian Navy has launched Operation Samudra Setu as a part of national effort to repatriate Indian citizens from overseas. Two Navy ships, INS Jalashwa and INS Magar are presently enroute to the port of Malè, Republic of Maldives to commence evacuation operations from May 8, 2020 as part of phase-1.

The Indian mission in the Republic of Maldives is preparing a list of Indian nationals to be evacuated by naval ships and will facilitate their embarkation after requisite medical screening. A total of 1000 persons are planned to be evacuated during the first trip.

The ships have been suitably provisioned for the evacuation operation. The evacuated personnel would be provided the basic amenities and medical facilities during the sea-passage. In view of the unique challenges associated with COVID-19 stringent protocols have also been stipulated.

The evacuated personnel will be disembarked in Kochi and entrusted to the care of state authorities.

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