The civil aviation ministry and the two national carriers, Air-India and Indian Airlines, are working overtime on an evacuation plan for Indian expatriates in the Persian Gulf region.

The plan involves air-lifting almost 500,000 Indians over a period of seven days.

During the Gulf War of 1991, the government, with the help of A-I and IA, air-lifted around 300,000 Indians from the region in one of the largest evacuation programmes till date.

Senior officials of the two airlines said they had been asked by the Centre to be ready for additional flights to the Gulf for the evacuation. "We are already on alert," one of them said.

The government felt Indians in Kuwait, Bahrain, and the UAE could come under threat if Iraq decided to embark upon reprisals in the face of a US-led attack, officials said.

Hence, the ministry has opened talks with the Saudi interior ministry to open the border for Indians who wish to move to Saudi Arabia for being air-lifted.

A government source said Riyadh and Jeddah, the two main cities of Saudi Arabia, would be the prime centres from where the evacuation was likely to be carried out, ‘in case it gets too dangerous to operate out of Kuwait and Bahrain.'

Both IA and A-I have extensive operations in the Gulf, because of the very high Indian expatriate population in the region.

While A-I flies to Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai, Jeddah, Muscat and Riyadh, domestic carrier IA operates flights to Kuwait, Bahrain, Doha, Ras-al-Khaimah, Sharjah and Muscat.

A-I last week increased the frequency of its flights to prime Gulf routes like Dubai, Muscat, Jeddah and Riyadh, though the move is not related to the evacuation plan.

It said it would operate daily non-stop flights to Dubai from Mumbai, Delhi and Kochi as well as daily flights between Kochi and Abu Dhabi as well as Muscat.