NRIs Shares Their Evacuation Experience to India (Vande Bharat Mission)

During phase two of the Vande Bharat mission, about 30,000 Indians will be returning to India. 14,800 Indians have already brought o India during the first phase.

An NRI has shared her experience being evacuated from UK to India on an Air India flight.

Here’s the TLDR summary.

  • May 7: Added to the HCI waitlist (after filing application online)
  • May 7: Travel confirmation received
  • May 8: Added to Air India waitlist
  • May 9: Payment made to Air India
  • May 10: Received flight tickets approx 8 hours before ETD
  • Air India has been very responsive with queries
  • Those with symptoms will not be allowed to travel
  • If detected with fever, you will be deboarded and taken to quarantine at your expense
  • Packaged food served in flight. No service/personal contact
  • Washroom access unrestricted inside flight. No queuing
  • No protective gear provided. Bring your own
  • Social distancing practiced right from flight
  • Health check after landing
  • Quarantine happens in good hotels
  • No choice of hotel but only category
  • Health checkups and testing done at hospitals
  • Hotel food and service is very good
  • No home quarantine option available
  • No visitors/relatives allowed in airport/hotel
  • No payments for swab tests

Thanks to Meghana for sharing her experience on Twitter.

Here are some excerpts.

✈️ Traveling? Get Covered. Get Insurance 👉 Recommended Plans

Before boarding

Food provided in flight

Hotel rates

You can reach directly to Meghana on Twitter.

There’s another NRI, Raam Chaware, who traveled from Newark (USA) to Mumbai on 10th May 2020 and quarantined in Pune has shared his experience here.

Major points to note.

  • Check if you are an Indian passport holder. Currently, the travel is strictly allowed only for Indian passport holders. Maybe in the future, the Indian Government will start foreign and OCI cardholders.
  • Check your body temperature. If you are above 99.0 F, you may lose your chance to travel.
  • You have a genuine reason to travel back to India. If you don’t have a genuine reason, please leave the spot for others who are needy.

Check out this new app that let’s you send money to India over WhatsApp at Google rates! 😮

I'm an Entrepreneur, Blogger & Mentor. Having lived in the USA for almost 7 years, I got bored and returned back to India. While doing so, created this website as a way to curate and journal my experiences. Today, it's a movement with a large community behind it. I hope this website helps NRIs planning to move back to India, make their transition smooth and easy. Feel free to ask any questions you may have. Happy to help!

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