The new government has announced the launch of e-visa or visa on arrival program for 43 different countries. Getting a visa for India used to be a lengthy procedure no matter what type of visa you wanted. There were lots of pages in the forms that needed to be filled but it is all being reformed now and you would be able to get a visa when you arrive in Delhi instead of queuing up at an Indian embassy at your home country provided you are from one of the 43 countries that are allowed to avail this facility. E-visa will be issued for 30 days and is not just for tourists but casual business traveler or even some one who wants to come to India for medical treatment can use this e-visa. Below is the partial list of countries that are in the list : Australia Brazil Cambodia Cook Islands Djibouti Federated States of Micronesia Fiji Finland Germany Indonesia Israel Japan Jordan Kenya Kingdom of Tongo Laos Luxembourg Mauritius Mexico Myanmar New Zealand Niue Norway Oman Palestine Papua & New Guinea Philippines Republic of Kiribati Republic of Korea (i.e. South Korea) Republic of Marshall Islands Republic of Nauru Republic of Palau Russia Samoa Singapore Solomon Islands Thailand Tuvalu UAE Ukraine USA Vietnam Vanuatu This is not the full list. The complete list contains 43 countries and will be available soon. Below is the list of nine airports this visa on arrival can be availed : Bangalore Chennai Kochi Delhi Goa Hyderabad Kolkata Mumbai Thiruvananthapuram I hope this brings in lots of tourists into India Hotel room rates are sure to go up and occupancy levels too.
This visa on arrival program was launched in 2010 but it was a half hearted attempt and was only available to 4-5 countries. Modi, the new prime minister has been very vocal about this and his recent foreign visits were used to advertise this to people in those countries and his call to NRIs to come visit India and bring their friends along was a good idea and I hope it works. The new government is doing many things to promote tourism and make India more easily accessible for every one and this is just one of those steps. All credit goes to the new government.
Hotel room prices are already very high in India and this sudden rush of tourists and other travelers into India will only take the prices higher. Government should do something about infrastructure too and may be provide some tax breaks or something on those lines for new hotels.
This is the official page where you can apply for Visa on arrival in India : https://indianvisaonline.gov.in/visa/tvoa.html
I am surprised to see that United Kingdom and Canada are both not in the list. The government website also mentions that people of Pakistani origin cannot avail this facility which makes perfect sense looking at the security situation in J&K these days. Journalists are also not allowed to avail this visa on arrival.
The list posted in the first post is not complete so I am guessing both UK and Canada will also be included in those 43 countries.
My guess is that Canada and UK are not on the list purely because Mr Modi wants to visit those countries and announce it while he is there instead of making it a low key announcement back home. I believe it is a good idea to make a big deal out of it as local British and Canadian media will also cover what he says there so it would double as an advertisement tool. Clever thinking if this is whats going to happen. I would personally like to see those two countries on the list as soon as possible.
The visa on arrival program will be available for 140 countries may be more but that's the word and this is surely going to give a booster injection to the lagging tourism industry in India. Even with these 43 countries right now I personally believe that footfalls will double next year in 2015 and may be double again in 2016. This is a dream come true for airlines industry and hotel industry. This is going to have a noticable impact on GDP of the country in coming years. Good going Modi ji
At last we have a real prime minister and not a dhongi I hope this speed of reforms keeps going in future too.
I take it that this facility is only for tourist visas not for those who want to do research work. Any idea if a tourist visa would be ok for research work too?
@Snake Charmer This facility is only for business travelers and tourists not for research work. You should contact your local embassy for that. Shouldn't be very complicated if you are not going to be earning money in India.
There are so many Indians who come from Europe and Canada and I am very surprised that some are not on the list, if not the whole of Europe at least United Kingdom should be listed.
This thread is a great encourager. That e-visa is very convenient particularly for me who has zero knowledge on India. I don't even know where the embassy here is. Fortunately, the Philippines is in the list so when we get a plane ticket then I can apply for a visa. By the way, we are on our way to the travel expo where discounted plane tickets are offered for next year's flights. We are considering a trip to Jakarta and probably Delhi too for our vacation trip in the first half of 2016.
There is a big misconception,actually,in terms of boosting tourism. It is common for many Indians to be impressed with fancy hotels, modern looking buildings and new expressways. Most tourists to India are Europeans or Americans and these fancy buildings, highways etc. will never impress them as they have better infrastructure way back their home. What tourists want is simplicity, cleanliness (most important) and honesty so they can spend their holidays in peace without worry. Modi Ji needs to splurge more money to visualize his ideas of an exponential increase in tourists and in turn revenue.
How easy is it to go through this process? It has peaked my interest and is something I may end up applying for. I just hope the process is quick, concise, and easy. I am a USA national so maybe that will slightly help.
I posted about this topic in another thread - please read through the below: 'Visa on Arrival' is a misnomer and it has been duly corrected by the government. "I am glad they are calling it the e-visa now, the same visa was previously called 'Visa on Arrival', which was quite frankly very confusing and few people who did not bother to check the details ended up being deported after arriving at an Indian airport. There was this famous case of a unfortunate Japanese lady who thought she could travel without a visa and who was hoping to get stamped at the airport, but ended being deported back to her country. In case anyone comes across previous articles regarding 'Visa on Arrival' for India, be warned that it does not exist."
