While the process of repatriation in India has started, families rejoiced when their kin landed in India and were in their home country. But, for some of the NRIs stranded in Bangalore and several other states in India, they are waiting for the initiation of the outbound flights so they can return to their work country.
A few of the flights from Delhi and Mumbai to fly out of India has been approved by the Ministry of Civil Aviation but the NRIs who are stranded in some of the other states are becoming desperate to get back to their work outside India.
Majority of the NRIs expressed that they are worried of losing their jobs and some of their VISAs are expiring pretty soon as well.
Several of the NRIs in similar situations have approached multiple ministries with the appeal but nothing has been approved yet.
One such individual, Hema Manwani said that they visited India to see some family members and were going to leave on March 17 but that didn’t go as planned. Since then, she has been keep an eye out on the outbound flights and even working with the airline customer representatives to find a way out of the situation.
Majority of the NRIs have also gotten busy in writing to their employers explaining the situation they are stuck in.
When asked, Manwani reported saying that there are several NRIs whose visas are going to get expired soon and some of them are stuck in India away from their family and several others have emergencies and need to be back home right this instant. But, despite them reaching out to the authorities, nobody has been looking into their appeals.
Another NRI, Ruchi Joshi came to India after delivering her baby. She came to Mangaluru with her newborn baby on February 26 and has been stuck here ever since. Both her husband and her 7-year old son are in their home in Washington DC. She visited Indian on her maternity leave which expired on April 11 and she is worried about the status of her job. She also expressed her distress on how difficult it is for her child and husband.
Not just the distress of being away from home, several NRIs are facing financial struggles too. An NRI, Tejasi said that she has a mortgage loan in India and has to pay for her house and car rentals along with the utility, and not being able to return will put them in a severe state of financial crisis.
Sanjana Arun, who graduated from California, United States stated saying that she was supposed to join Oracle soon. Given that she is an international student, she needs to return to US on the given time frame to be able to start working. Not just that, she is also worried about her student loan and she has been paying both her rent and health insurance in US, despite being stuck in India.
Upon contacting the State Home Minister of Bengaluru, they replied saying, “We must wait for the official communication from the Centre to issue a guideline for NRIs.”
The NRIs have also created WhatsApp groups to further communicate and speak to the officials but have still not gotten positive news in this regard.
