Melbourne mum Swetha Maram is on a rescue mission. As hundreds of stranded Australians plead for help to escape India, she is going the other way: flying into Bangalore to be reunited with her 20-month-old daughter.

“I am feeling so happy,” Ms Maram told the ABC, as she waited to board her flight.

“I want my baby, to hold her in my hands. It’s been more than five months now.”

Ms Maram took her daughter Naomika to India in January so she could spend some time with her grandparents there.

She returned to Australia for work and had planned to head back to Bangalore to collect her daughter. But in March, India was abruptly put into lockdown.

Suddenly, there was no way in or out.

“We requested the Government to approve any one of my family members to get my baby back to Australia. But they didn’t agree to that,” she said.

Bangalore, India’s high-tech hub, was fairing relatively well under India’s lockdown, with only around 1,000 cases by mid-June.

But cases surged as the country opened up and more than 20,000 infections were reported this week, prompting the city to go back into lockdown.

By the time Ms Maram arrives, there will be no way home in the foreseeable future. She is leaving behind her husband and son in Australia while she goes to rescue Naomika.

“I’m facing a difficult situation of not having my wife with me. I’m a bit worried and scared,” her husband Sunil Maram said.

“I’m very much concerned about the number of increasing infections in India. I don’t know when it’s going to come to an end.”

Charter flights take stranded Indians home

The flight Ms Maram boarded to Bangalore is not an official repatriation flight.

It is one of two charter flights which will help some of the 6,000 Indians who were stranded in Australia when pandemic restrictions were implemented.

One of the flight organisers, Arun Sharma, said the passengers had been in Australia for a variety of reasons and were caught off guard by India’s sudden lockdown.

“Tourism, education, meeting their families. Unfortunately they got stuck. Some of them have very emotional stories,” Mr Sharma said.

Mr Sharma was part of a group of Sydneysiders who organised a series of private flights to rescue to help stranded Australians in India in April.

After the last successful mission, they were bombarded with messages from Indians stuck in Australia pleading for help.

He said a “feeling of community service” compelled him to organise charter flights going in the opposite direction of the first ones.

“All these people are asking you to book the flights and help them out,” he said.

“But when you do it, half of them come forward and the other half will say, ‘Are you real? Is this not a scam?’.”

Like the flights to Australia, Mr Sharma and his team gave priority seating to those with special needs, such as the elderly, those with underlying health conditions, and pregnant women.

“I’ve seen there are still a lot of Australians still there in India, especially [in] the south,” he said.

“If there is a need, I’ll definitely put my hand up and try and help.”

Stranded Australians say travel agents scalping tickets

Many Australians used private charter flights to flee India’s lockdown before the Australian Government organised 13 flights with Qatar Airways and Qantas in April and May.

Since then, the Government has relied on a series of Air India flights the Indian Government organised for repatriation.

More than 7,600 Australians have left India since March, but Australians stuck in India say supply has fallen far short of demand.

Tickets sell out within minutes and there are multiple reports of Indian travel agents buying seats and trying to sell them at a profit.

A months-long ban on internal Indian travel, including domestic flights, also complicated the problem, as most repatriation flights departed from a few major cities such as Delhi and Mumbai.

Five flights to Melbourne and Sydney have now been cancelled, in the wake of international flights to Victoria being halted amid the state’s second outbreak and bungles over hotel quarantine.

No date has been set for commercial flights to Australia resuming.

Perth mother Kamaljit Kaur is stuck in Punjab with her teenage son, who is in year 11, while her husband is back in Perth.

She has now had two flights to Australia cancelled.

“I am going through depression. Even my son is going through depression. He is so upset,” Ms Kaur said.

“I cried yesterday. It’s so hard staying without family. It’s so hard staying alone. I don’t know how long it will take to come back to our home.”

She pleaded with Australian authorities to resume flights.

“I am happy to pay more for the flight. But I just want to come back with my son. The conditions are getting worse every day.”