At least 1,000 Rajasthanis to arrive from various countries

JAIPUR: At least 1,000 Rajasthanis including medical students stranded in various countries will start returning to the state from June 15 by availing ‘Vande Bharat’ facility. All of them will return to Jaipur from the seven different flights proposed to arrive in Jaipur in the second phase of Vande Bharat for Jaipur.
Airports Authority of India (AAI), Jaipur on Monday confirmed that seven flights from different countries are proposed to arrive in Jaipur. “We will have seven flights to Jaipur which include flights from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Abu Dhabi, Ukraine and Tajikistan. These flights will start arriving in Jaipur from June 15,” said a senior officer of AAI while sharing the schedule of the flights.

In the first phase of Vande Bharat at least 3,000 Rajasthani people stuck in various countries including United Kingdom were brought to Jaipur. Also, as per guidelines these passengers after arrival would be sent to the quarantine centres as per their choice and they would be paying for the quarantine facility.
Also, the operators like Air India have opened booking from United States of America (USA) and Cananda to Delhi. “After our continuous efforts and requests to civil aviation minister these flights are opening. Many people in the USA and Canada wish to go back to India. There are people whose parents had gone to visit their families in the USA in December and got stuck due to lockdown. These flights would also be utilized by people of Rajasthan as after arriving in Delhi they have connectivity of domestic flights to some cities like Jaipur and train connectivity,” said Prem Bhandari, USA chairman of Jaipur Foot.
Many Rajasthanis have also applied for the flights up to Delhi which are also starting from June 15.
Also, with the relaxation of OCI card holder norms, more Rajasthani Indians are likely to return and avail the facility. OCI card gives Indians working and living in various countries to have visa-free travel to India which was stopped during the first three lockdowns, but the facility is now open.