India-UAE flights: Pay Dh22,000 for one-way ticket, and wait for two weeks

New Delhi - Charter flight operators making a killing, as stranded Indian expats seek to return to their jobs at their earliest.

I had a one-way ticket to ride on April 26 to attend a medical emergency back home, as my wife had tested Covid-19 positive three days earlier and her oxygen saturation (SPO2) was going down at an alarming level.

I landed in the small hours the following day amid an all-round panic in India’s national capital over a lack of liquid medical oxygen cylinders, overwhelmed hospitals, overflowing corpses at mortuaries, and an acute space crunch in crematoria, burial grounds and cemeteries for a dignified farewell to the dead.

Delhi beggared description, as India became a bereaved nation barely eight weeks — February 21 to be precise — after the government had prematurely proclaimed that it had won over the Covid-19 challenge.

Three weeks later, there is a sharp fall in daily Covid-19 cases to less than 300,000 — clouded by lack of tests — and a severe shortage of vaccines mirror.

Data is at odds with ground realities that appear to be reinforced by cold statistics of a staggering 66,866 people, who have died due to the contagion since the beginning of May.

Amid the all-pervasive doom and gloom, there was a silver lining, as my wife was discharged from hospital on Sunday (May 16) and I started weighing my options to head back to Dubai, even though India has suspended flight operations to the UAE till May 31 to keep the contagion at bay.

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Initially, the UAE had suspended flight operations from India for 10 days from April 24 following the spiralling number of new daily Covid-19 infections and now the ban is in place till May 31.

But what can UAE residents and Indian nationals like me do to get back and resume work at the earliest?

Well, elaborate research and multiple calls to several travel agents evoked a dreary picture.

India — a happy hunting ground for a parallel economy whenever a crisis of any hues such as demonetisation to Covid-19 strikes the nation — has its task cut out because its nationals are not welcome to any of the countries on the “Green List”, which are unaffected by the viral scourge.

Perhaps, divine intervention is the need of the hour, as governance has collapsed, and crooks, as always, are having a field day.