India Brings Visa-On-Arrival Policy for Tourists

 The Government has introduced a new mantra for promoting tourism in India. As many new guidelines are being introduced and several visa rules being tightened one after the other, the government recently announced the visa-on-arrival policy for the tourists flocking into the country. However, this new policy which has come as great news for the inbound travelers is not for all. This is to say that the visas-on-arrival will only be available for five selected countries. These countries include Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Luxembourg and Finland. This new guideline will soon be implemented and much likely on this Friday as the ministry of external affairs said.

The ministry also said that this visas-on-arrival plan is a pilot project which will continue on an experimental basis for a full one year span. According to what the MEA said, the visa aims at those foreign travelers from these five countries who plan a trip to India on a short notice. The ministry further added that these tourists can get their visas from the posts or missions in the usual course. These visas will be valid for a maximum of 30 days and have a single entry facility. These will initially be issued by the immigration officers at all the major city airports viz. Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai. Seeing the inconvenience of the foreign tourists in this matter and in the process of making clarifications to the Foreign missions, the ministry of external affairs said that a two months gap will be applied between two visas.

These visas will be given to the citizens of these five countries no matter where they fly in from. They will have to pay $60 for the visa which will be available at the airport counters of all the major metros in India. Besides they will also need to conform to a couple of rules and regulations. The airports authorities will also check if the tourist has the monetary capacity to sustain their stay for the period as given in their tour itinerary. This new rule will not only boost up the tourism business in the country but also strengthen the business bonds between Finland and Japan, as these have been the two countries who have been visiting India with huge inbound investments. Some of the shining examples of these Japanese investing companies in India are Nissan, Honda and Suzuki and those of Finland are Nokia and its associate companies.