TL;DR Between 2021 and 2026, India ran twelve distinct evacuation and repatriation operations, from Kabul’s besieged airport under Operation Devi Shakti to the Iran–Armenia land crossing due to West Asia Crisis, bringing home more than 32,000 nationals at a declared cost of over ₹216 crore. But the headline numbers do not show the nuance that the cost of rescuing an Indian citizen has varied by more than a thousandfold depending on where the crisis struck and how it was managed, and 2026’s West Asia crisis has been, by a wide margin, the largest mobilisation of India’s consular machinery in this period, not through chartered evacuation flights, but through a quieter, cheaper method of facilitated commercial return.

Context

Every time a war breaks out, a coup unfolds, or a region descends into chaos, a familiar anxiety grips Indian households with family or friends caught in the crossfire abroad. Over the past five years, that anxiety has become an almost routine feature of India’s foreign policy calendar: Kabul in 2021, Kyiv in 2022, Khartoum and Tel Aviv in 2023, Port-au-Prince in 2024, and Tehran, Yerevan and Tel Aviv again through 2025 and into 2026.

Behind every evacuation, however, lies a complex logistical operation involving aircraft, naval ships, diplomatic coordination, and substantial public expenditure. This story examines these operations in detail, exploring who was rescued, what the missions cost, how they were executed, and what they reveal about India’s growing capacity to protect its citizens abroad.

Who compiles this data?

The data on the expenditure incurred and the count of Indian Nationals assisted/evacuated come directly from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), compiled from records maintained by Indian Missions and Posts abroad and the Ministry’s crisis-management division at headquarters.

Where can I download clean & structured data related to this?

Clean, structured, and ready-to-use datasets on the expenditure and the persons evacuated is available on Dataful.

Key Insights

India’s overseas evacuations are becoming larger and costlier, but scale reduces the cost per person
What began as an emergency response to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has evolved into a recurring feature of India’s foreign policy. Between 2021 and 2026, the Ministry of External Affairs mounted twelve evacuation operations across conflict zones, political crises and natural emergencies spanning Asia, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean. Each mission was triggered by a different crisis, but together they reveal a clear trend: India is evacuating more people, from more places, and at a steadily rising cost.

Taken together, the twelve operations account for roughly 35,900 Indians evacuated or repatriated since 2021, at a declared expenditure of approximately ₹216 crore. While the number of operations has varied from year to year, both the scale of evacuations and the financial burden have generally trended upward, apart from a brief lull in 2024.

The data also shows that the cost of rescuing each citizen varies enormously depending on the nature of the operation. Operation Indravati (Haiti) was the costliest at about ₹2.84 lakh per person, while Operation Ganga (Ukraine), despite costing over ₹116 crore, averaged only ₹63,800 per evacuee because of its scale. Similarly, Operations Kaveri (Sudan) and Ajay (Israel) cost around ₹1.1–1.3 lakh per person, whereas missions relying on commercial flights or land-border facilitation were significantly cheaper. The pattern is clear: larger, sustained evacuations benefit from economies of scale, while small, remote or improvised rescue missions carry a much higher per-person cost.

The 2026 West Asia crisis assisted more Indians than all evacuation missions combined

If Operation Ganga defined India’s evacuation response during the Ukraine war, the 2026 West Asia crisis marked a different model altogether. Instead of large-scale government airlifts, India relied primarily on facilitating commercial travel, transit visas, and cross-border movement.

Indian missions assisted the return of over 1.4 lakh Indian nationals during the crisis, more than three times the total evacuated under all twelve named operations since 2021. Most of this came from Qatar (about 1 lakh people) and Kuwait (around 30,000), where missions coordinated transit visas, alternative routes, and non-scheduled commercial flights.

The contrast is significant. Unlike Operations Ganga, Kaveri, or Devi Shakti, which depended on government-organised evacuation flights, the 2026 response focused on keeping commercial mobility functioning. Rather than evacuating citizens directly, Indian missions enabled them to leave through existing transport networks, suggesting a shift towards facilitated evacuation, a model capable of assisting far larger numbers at a much lower cost.

Evacuation patterns reflect migration corridors more than the crisis itself

The state-wise data shows that who gets evacuated is shaped less by the crisis than by India’s long-established migration and education links with the affected country. During Operation Ganga (Ukraine), Kerala accounted for 18.3% of all evacuees (3,343 of 18,282), far ahead of Uttar Pradesh (10.5%), reflecting the large number of Malayali students pursuing medical education in Ukraine.

The pattern shifts completely in Iran. Across Operation Sindhu and the subsequent Iran–Armenia evacuation, Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh together accounted for nearly half of all evacuees, highlighting the long-standing flow of students from these regions to Iran, particularly for religious and medical studies.

Operation Kaveri in Sudan tells yet another story. Uttar Pradesh (19.5%), Gujarat (12.4%) and Bihar (9.3%) contributed the largest shares of evacuees, consistent with their sizeable communities of traders, workers, and small business owners in East Africa.

The broader takeaway is that evacuation planning is shaped as much by India’s migration geography as by geopolitics. Each crisis affects a different demographic, requiring responses tailored to where Indians live, study, and work abroad.

Why does it matter?

Evacuation operations sit at an unusual intersection of foreign policy, public finance and human welfare; they are simultaneously a test of diplomatic reach, logistical capacity, and the state’s basic duty of care toward citizens caught outside its borders. As crises multiply, multiple separate West Asia-linked operations alone since 2023, understanding not just how many people were rescued but at what cost, through what channel, and with what accountability gaps, is essential to evaluating whether India’s evacuation architecture is scaling sustainably or simply absorbing more strain each year. The shift visible in the 2026 data, from costly chartered airlifts toward cheaper facilitated commercial return, may represent an important operational lesson but it also raises the question of whether India’s promised digital registration platform, will be ready before the next crisis breaks.

Key Numbers

• 12 major evacuation operations, 2021–2026

• ~32,000 Indians evacuated under named operations

• ~₹216 crore total declared expenditure across quantified operations

• 1.4 lakh+ Indians facilitated to return during the 2026 West Asia crisis alone