Vande Bharat Mission: Over 800 stranded Indians brought home via four flights on May 25

Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said that over 800 Indians stranded abroad were repatriated on four flights from Dona, San Francisco, Melbourne and Sydney under the Vande Bharat Mission on Monday, May 25.

'Mission of Hope and Happiness'

"Vande Bharat - Mission of Hope and Happiness. 833 Indian citizens return on four flights from Doha, San Francisco, Melbourne and Sydney to Delhi, Gaya, Kochi and Ahmedabad on May 25, 2020," Hardeep Singh Puri said in a tweet on Monday.

Centre launched the first phase of the Vande Bharat Mission on May 7 to evacuate Indians stranded abroad due to COVID-19 induced lockdown. The second phase started on May 16. Last week, Puri had said that over 20 thousand Indian citizens have been brought back to the country under the mission so far and the number will rise further in the coming days.

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'Looking to bring back Indians from 47 countries'

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) recently announced that the second phase of the mission has been extended to June 13. "The second phase of this mission began from May 16 onward and this phase will last till June 13. We are looking to bring back our nationals from 47 countries on 162 flights in this phase," MEA spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said.

"In this phase, we are including places like Istanbul, Ho Chi Minh City, Lagos, etc and also increasing flights to the US and to Europe. We also looking at developing Frankfurt as a hub," he added.

Meanwhile, India's domestic flight services resumed on Monday after a gap of two months but a large number of last-minute cancellations by airlines triggered chaos leaving thousands of passengers stranded on airports.

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News agency PTI quoting aviation industry sources said that about 630 of an estimated 1,150 domestic flights, for which bookings opened on May 22, were cancelled after some states like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu allowed only limited operations or delayed reopening of the airports owing to a spike in coronavirus cases. The Centre for its part said 532 flights carrying 39,231 passengers were operated on Monday.

READ | Air India reveals bringing back 50 moms-to-be aboard one Vande Bharat flight on May 11

The flights were resumed on a day when India registered the biggest single-day spike of 6,977 new COVID-19 cases surpassing the 6,000 mark for the fourth day -- taking its tally to 1,38,845. India is now in the top ten worst-affected countries by the pandemic, overtaking Iran which was in the 10th position with 135,701 cases.

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(With agency inputs)