New Delhi: E-tourist visa facility, which allows foreigners to get easy travel documents to visit India at the click of a button, will be extended to 150 countries and some more airports within this fiscal, reports PTI.
A Home Ministry official said that plans are afoot to offer the service to a total of 150 countries by March 31 next year. From tomorrow onwards, the e-tourist visa facility will be extended to 36 more countries, taking the total number of countries under the scheme up to 113.
Seven more airports, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency Varanasi and Ahmedabad in his home state, will add to the existing nine airports where tourists with e-tourist visa can land.
Under the e-visa scheme, an applicant receives an email authorising him or her to travel to India after it is approved and he or she can travel with a print-out of this authorisation.
On arrival, the visitor has to present the authorisation to the immigration authorities who would then stamp the entry into the country.
The official said the United States and the United Kingdom have expressed their reservations over India taking biometrics details from each tourist while arriving in India.
“Biometric details are taken as per our security requirement. Both the countries take biometric details of each foreign visitor as per their security requirements but we have never been opposed to it,” he said. — PTI
