Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (SB)

Mangaluru, Jul 7: Under the Vande Bharat Mission, national carrier Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express released the flight operation list for more Kannadigas stranded in the Middle East. According to the list released, from July 16 to July 31 a total 13 flights will be involved in the repatriation of those stranded from UAE to Mangaluru via Bengaluru.

In the fourth phase of the mission, the first flight from Dubai Airport will take off on July 16 at 12:20 hrs and will arrive at Bengaluru Airport at 17:35 hrs. Another flight that is scheduled to take off from Sharjah on July 19 at 14.00 hrs will arrive Bengaluru at 19:30 hrs.

Representational image

A connecting flight from Muscat will take off on July 22 at 14:15 hrs and will arrive Bengaluru at 19:25 hrs. This flight will then arrive at Mangaluru Airport at 21:10 hrs. On July 23, there will be a direct flight from Muscat to Mangaluru which will take off from the departure point at 14:40 hrs.

Later in the month, a flight will operate from Abu Dhabi on July 26 at 11:20 hrs and will arrive at Bengaluru at 16:55 hrs.

The detailed list of flights to Bengaluru/Mangaluru including their departure/arrival details is below:

Earlier, the Centre had released a list of flights for the next 11 days under the Vande Bharat Mission which only included flight operations to Kerala. This move attracted criticism from the Kannadigas living in UAE as they believed that flight operations to Karnataka have been a handful in comparison to other states.

Speaking on the situation, one of the well-known social workers who is working among the Kannadigas in UAE said, "The central government has completely neglected Karnataka. Even the state government is not showing much interest in bringing home the people of Karnataka stranded in UAE. Last month, Kerala succeeded in sending more than 40 flights under the mission, but Karnataka has been completely neglected. It is easy to make plans to bring flights to Karnataka. Both the state and central governments are ruled by the same political party. But somewhere, it looks like both the governments have failed to understand the difficulties of Kannadigas stuck in the UAE."

It was also believed that there may have been some form of lobby taking place in the embassy from Kerala which enabled them to operate more flights to the state.