Over 240 stranded Indians on Wednesday boarded the special Air India flight at the Dulles International Airport in the US to fly back home as part of India's biggest ever repatriation exercise amid the travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The passengers included students, women, children and senior citizens.
India's Ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu said that so far 28,000 Indian citizens stranded in the US have expressed their interest in travelling back to India.
After the first phase of seven flights from four US cities - New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC - which would end this week, preparations are on for the second phase of seven more flights from these cities, he said.
Talking to Indian reporters at the airport, he did not rule out the possibility of more such flights under the Vande Bharat Mission, which is the Indian government's biggest ever exercise to bring back its nationals from abroad stranded due to the COVID-19 travel restrictions.
Civial Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Wednesday said that 30,000 Indians will return from 31 countries on 149 flights in phase 2 of the Vande Bharat Mission.
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This is an unprecedented situation. No one was prepared for this. We are in the service of the people of India, wherever they are, Sandhu said as he personally met a number of Indian nationals flying back to India.
The first flight from the US flew from San Francisco on Sunday. The last flight in this first phase is slated to fly from Chicago on May 15. Around 2,000 Indian nationals are likely to fly back in this phase.
Meanwhile, the Indians who were to board the flight praised the government's efforts to bring back its nationals at the time of crisis.
Vande Bharat Mission makes us feel proud as an Indian citizen, Gurpreet Singh Bagga said before checking in the Air India flight at the Dulles International Airport in Washington DC.
For the past several weeks, he was stranded in Charlotte. There were sleepless nights and I was not sure when I would be meeting my family, he said.
Bagga, who lives with his family in Gurugram, said that he had not imagined he would be able to meet his family so soon.
Government of India never leaves its citizens, he said.
Chandrakala came to drop her 72-year-old mother to the airport as she was flying to Hyderabad.
I liked the system that has been developed under the Vande Bharat Mission and the help that the Indian Embassy provided us, she said.
Tushar, who is one of the passengers, said that he has been waiting here since two months for a flight back home after he completed his pilot training course in Miami on March 20.
He said that in the past few weeks, he had panicked and had been repeatedly calling the Embassy to get him on to a flight to India. They attended all my calls, he said.
The registration process for those interested in travelling back to India is still open. These special flights are only for Indian citizens. All foreign visas and those having Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) cards outside the country have been suspended till the time there are restrictions on international travel.
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