India has added 58 more flights to evacuate stranded and distressed nationals from Gulf countries between now and June 30, Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Wednesday. He informed that staring immediately, the number of flights from Gulf under phase-3 of the ‘Vande Bharat Mission‘ has now increased from originally planned 107 to 165.
In the third phase of the government-backed Vande Bharat Mission, Air India and subsidiary Air India Express will have 80 flights to Europe, a similar number of flights to the US and Canada, and about 165 to Gulf countries during 10-30 June, civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.
Vande Bharat is proving to be a mission of hope for stranded & distressed Indians around the world.
2441 Indians returned from Newark, Istanbul, New York, Stockholm, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Doha, Muscat, Dubai & Kuala Lumpur on 9 June.
We continue to add more flights.@MoCA_GoI pic.twitter.com/ZgGkf9Hu8S
— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) June 10, 2020
More flights to the West
The minister further said that Phase 3 of VBM will have 80 flights to Europe, including two daily flights to London and two to other European destinations, between now and 30 June. Moreover, 10 additional flights to the United States and Canada will be flown apart from 70 that have already been announced.
State-run carrier Air India had previously announced that it will operate around 300 flights to Europe, Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK and Africa between June 10 and July 1 during phase 3 of Vande Bharat Mission.
‘Mission of hope’
In an earlier tweet, Hardeep Singh Puri had said that the Vande Bharat Mission, started in early May to repatriate stranded Indians across the globe amid the COVID-19 pandemic, “is proving to be a mission of hope for stranded and distressed Indians” around the world.
The first phase brought back about 15,000 Indians home, while the second phase carried nearly 30,000 citizens till May 29. The mission, said to be the largest repatriation exercise in the world, intends to bring back over two lakh Indians stranded across the world since the lockdown was announced in March.
Mean-while, The coronavirus pandemic in India touched another new peak today. The states witnessed the biggest jump in daily COVID-19 count with over 9,996 new cases in the last 24 hours. With this, India’s coronavirus tally surged past 2.86 lakh. Maharashtra registered the highest spike in daily coronavirus cases while Tamil Nadu saw an explosion on new cases in the last 24 hours. Delhi’s coronavirus tally continued to rise sharply even on Wednesday.
