Independent India's largest repatriation mission to bring back its citizens stranded abroad due to COVID-19 pandemic is all set to begin with New Delhi giving the formal green signal. India will be getting back 1,92,000 people in the first phase of the mammoth exercise starting May 7 with the focus on the Gulf. 

UAE will be the first country from were India will start getting back its nationals with the first two Air India flights landing in Kerala on May 7. One flight will fly from Abu Dhabi to Kochi and another from Dubai to Kozhikode on the same day. A number of blue-collared Indians are stranded in the country who have registered themselves so that they can come back home. 

India's envoy to UAE Pavan Kapoor, speaking exclusively to Zee Media, said, "I am glad that we are starting this process of repatriation for those who urgently need to return to India. We look forward to working closely with the UAE authorities to make this process as smooth and efficient as we can."

The largest-ever evacuation carried out by India was the 1990 airlift of Indians from Kuwait during the Gulf War in which 170,000 Indian expatriates were from the west Asian country.

In the first phase of the repatriation itself, India will start getting back its citizens from the neighbourhood, with Maldives and Bangladesh being the focus. On May 8, around 700 Indians who have registered will be brought back from Male to Kochi by the Indian Naval ship.

In the second phase, India will start facilitating the return of its citizens from Iran, the USA, the UK, and Malaysia. Indian missions across the world are already preparing a list of distressed Indian citizens.

Sources told Zee Media, "Data collection ongoing in most missions, with some looking at dates for evacuation and making all necessary arrangements accordingly."

Several missions have opened registration for the stranded Indians.

Around 11,000 stranded Indians have registered with Indian mission in Moscow, 1200  in New Zealand, 390 Indian nationals have so far registered with High Commission of Nairobi, 2000 at India's mission in Canada and five Indians in Somalia have also registered so that they can get back home.

Only asymptomatic passengers would be allowed to travel and Standard Operating Protocol (SOP) for the process had been prepared in this regard.

"State governments are being advised to make arrangements, including for testing, quarantine and onward movement of the returning Indians in their respective States.", MHA in a statement said.

The facilitation will only be on "compelling grounds" and will be done via planes and naval ships on payment basis and non-scheduled commercial flights would be arranged for air travel. During the process of getting back, all health protocols like social distancing norms will have to be followed.

INS Jalashwa, Indian Navy's largest Amphibious platform (Landing Platform Dock). is already at sea. It is likely to be sent for evacuation. It can carry 1000 troops. With the current social distancing, norms it can carry 500-700 people. Two to three Landing Ship Tanks (LST) are likely to be deployed. India has two classes of LST -- Magar class and Shardul.

The evacuees after reaching the destination would have to register on the Indian government's Aarogya Setu app which has been developed to alert about the COVID-19 crisis and alerts regarding it. After being medically screened, they will be quarantined for 14 days in a hospital or in an institutional quarantine on payment-basis by the state governments, which will be followed by a COVID-19 test at the end of the given period.

Earlier this year, India brought back approximately 2500 of its citizens and 48 foreign nationals from China, Japan, Iran, and Italy.

'Operation Raahat' in 2015 saw India bringing back around 4,600 of its citizens while 'Operation Sankat Mochan' in 2016 saw India bringing back 600 of its nationals from South Sudan. 'Operation Safe Homecoming' in 2011 to bring back Indians from war-torn Libya saw 15,000 Indian nationals being brought back.

The first decade of the century saw 'Operation Sukoon' in which the Indian Navy got back 1,764 Indians and was the largest evacuation operations conducted by the Navy since World War II.