The Vande Bharat scheme was just a cover for expensive and monopolistic charter flights. The US has rightly called it out

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, some in the Indian Government will argue. After the first phase of the evacuation of Indian pilgrims from Iran as also those of stranded students from Wuhan, the epicentre of the viral contagion that upended the world, there was a poorly planned lockdown back home. The most visible image of this fiasco was that of poor migrants from the Hindi heartland and the eastern States walking hundreds of kilometres in the sharp summer sun to make their way from India’s industrialised urban centres to their villages without the availability of a bus or train. How could the Government provide free air transport to thousands of Indians stranded abroad who could ostensibly afford it? At the same time, it sought to ignore the plight of millions of labourers back home, all of whom had lost their daily wages overnight. This was rightly surmised by many.

As a result, the enhanced evacuation of Indian citizens from abroad under the “Vande Bharat” scheme began. Indian citizens were charged a pretty penny to return to Indian shores from abroad. The Government and Air India, the State-owned airline, figured that they could make more money by selling seats to those who wanted to return abroad — whether to Europe or North America. Again, the tickets were expensive and with other airlines prohibited from operating any flights other than those for evacuation purposes, Air India was pocketing a decent sum. Of course, the State-owned carrier has huge debts and with many international and domestic operations at a standstill, it is still losing money. But as the US’ Department of Transportation (DoT) has noted, this was a “monopolistic” and “unfair” practice, hiding behind the garb of Government regulations to prohibit other flight operations. While the US DoT has given 30 days to wind up these flights or open up equal access to its airlines, it is likely that other regulators in Europe and the Arabian peninsula will have similar stances. They would either force India to stop these pseudo-evacuation flights and make them proper flights or ask it to gradually open up its airspace to international airlines and travel. The last is already being considered. This should also give the Government an opportunity to look into how it can improve the evacuation flights. It is true that many migrants from India are well-educated, white-collar employees who can afford an expensive ticket home.  But it would be ludicrous to ignore the masses of blue-collar Indian workers, especially in the Arabian peninsula and even in Europe and North America, who are much more important to the remittance economy that powers many parts of the country. These workers surely do not have enough for a full-fare economy ticket in the middle of their contract. It is contingent on the Government to figure out a way to bring them, the most vulnerable of India’s migrants, back home. It must stop constantly patting itself on its back on social media. The Vande Bharat mission is nothing more than a public relations stunt.