Indians stranded across 31 countries will return home in the second leg of the ongoing evacuation process.

Vande Bharat Mission is touted as one of the world's largest evacuation operations.

The first phase of the repatriation began on May 7 and approximately 15,000 passengers are likely to be brought back by May 15.

The second phase of the Vande Bharat Mission will be launched between May 16 and May 22. Around 149 flights including feeder flights will be deployed in the operation. Indians stranded across 31 countries will return home in the second leg of the ongoing evacuation process.

The second phase of the repatriation exercise is much bigger in scale with flights being deployed to Ukraine, Russia, Europe and several other South East Asian nations as well.

The highest number of repatriation flights would be flying to the USA.

13 flights would repatriate citizens from the United States and 11 from the UAE. Over 39 flights would be operating to and fro from the Gulf, which has the highest concentration of Indian nationals. 10 flights are being sent to Canada, 9 to the UK and 7 to Australia. 11 flights would be flying to European countries and 6 to Russia.

The first phase of the repatriation began on May 7 and approximately 15,000 passengers are likely to be brought back by May 15.

The Indian Navy has also been participating in the repatriation mission. The INS Jalashwa and INS Magar will be bringing back approximately 900 Indian citizens by the May 15.

India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 70,000 people and killed around 2,290 people in the country so far.