Repatriation flights between Kuwait, Indian cities announced

Muscat: Indian Embassy in Kuwait has published the Phase 8 schedule of Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) flights from Kuwait to different cities in India. The schedule lists flights of Air India Express and Indigo starting from November 1 to November 29.

Air India Express’ scheduled flights are operational between Kuwait and the Indian cities of Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Trichy, Lucknow, Delhi, Goa and Mumbai. Indigo, the low-cost carrier based in India, will also be operating flights between Kuwait and the Indian cities of Chennai, Hyderabad, Cochin, Calicut, Trivandrum, Kannur, Jaipur, Ahmedabad and Lucknow during the month of November.

The Indian Embassy in Kuwait has started registration for repatriation of Indian nationals. The embassy has opened the registration to collect the details of those who wish to return to India through VBM flights.

As per a recent Bloomberg report, Kuwait’s parliament unanimously passed a law giving the government one year to slash its expatriate population, a move that could see hundreds of thousands of foreign residents forced to leave the country. In June this year, Kuwait’s Prime minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Sabah had said that Kuwait would like to reduce the expat numbers to 30 per cent of the country’s population, a move that could see as many as 2.5 million people leave the country.

In July, a proposal was put forth suggesting that the number of Indians in Kuwait should not exceed 15 per cent. The draft law was not discussed or voted in parliament; thus it was not put into effect