COVID-19 lockdown: NRIs stranded in Chennai demand chartered flights to return home

While countries such as UK have given their approval for NRIs to return, US is only allowing its citizens and permanent residents to come back.

Published: 13th April 2020 04:43 AM 

By Omjasvin M D 

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Living in different time zones and disconnected from work life, many non-resident Indians stranded in Chennai due to the lockdown want to go back home. As many as 300 NRIs had taken to Twitter, to appeal to the Civil Aviation Ministry to arrange chartered flights for them to go back home. A decision in this regard, however, is pending. “One flight per country is enough to get us all back home,” they said.

While countries such as UK have given their approval for NRIs to return, US is only allowing its citizens and permanent residents to come back. Sharvari Sridharan, an NRI currently in Chennai, was supposed to leave on March 31 to the US.

She couldn’t because the US government had not arranged repatriating flights for H1B visa holders, who work in the US.

“Our medical insurance is tied with providers in the US and coverage will be limited here. There is also a different pay structure and that’s a struggle we are facing here,’’ says Sharvari. From April 6 to 10, the US government repatriated their citizens and permanent residents stranded in India back to their country through special flights via Delhi and Mumbai.

Anjana Ravi, a resident of Seattle, who came to Chennai during the first week of March along with her four-months-old, says she was supposed to leave on March 26 but now she does not know when she would return. “My husband and three-year-old son are back in Seattle. I couldn’t train the baby for sleep due to the IST and now again I have to do it when I go back there. Without knowing the end date of all this (lockdown), it is frustrating and leading to postpartum depression,’’ said Anjana, who has a L2 Visa (dependent spouse).

She said that she had not yet received refunds for her tickets too.