E-Visa – Tourism increased by 400%

In last year December, the tourist arrivals have increased by over 400 percent when compared to December 2013. The sudden increase is now linked to the launch of Tourist Visa on Arrival (TVoA) enabled by Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) scheme in 44 countries on November 27, 2014.

Rajnath Singh, Union home minister told a meeting of the parliamentary consultative committee on home affairs that there has been a 421.6 percent increase in tourist arrivals in December 2014 when compared to 2013. The government has issued 14,038 ETAs last year as compared to just 2,700 visas in December 2013. The minister has further added that as many as 65,000 ETAs were issued within just 75 days of the launch of the facility. He stated that there was an average of 1,000 ETAs being issued every day.

The consultative panel meeting was conducted to review visa enabled by ETA and Immigration, Visa, Foreigners Registration and Tracking (IVFRT) project. The meeting was attended by Jyotiraditya Scindia,

Devendra Bhole Singh, Hukum Singh, Tariq Hameed Karra, Thokchom Meinya and T G Venkatesh Babu of the Lok Sabha and Shantaram Naik, K C Tyagi, Mukul Roy and Ram Gopal Yadav of the Rajya Sabha.

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