Tourists from Ottawa, St. Petersburg, Munich and 5 other cities can give biometrics at home town

New Delhi, October 28

Tourists from Ottawa, St. Petersburg, Munich and five other foreign cities will now have easy entry into India with the e-visa biometric enrolment facilities being available in the Indian mission there, officials said on Sunday.

With the addition of the eight cities, the biometric enrollment procedure under the integrated online visa system has been implemented in 152 missions out of 178 missions abroad.

The e-visa biometric enrolment software has been operationalised in eight Indian missions—Ottawa (Canada ), St. Petersburg and Vladivostok (Russia), Munich (Germany), Brussels (Belgium), Oslo (Norway), Budapest (Hungary) and Zagreb (Croatia), a home ministry official said.

Tourists with e-visa can now provide their biometric details in these Indian missions instead of on arrival in India, thus making their entry in the country hassle-free.

This system facilitates easy sharing and monitoring of visa data on real time basis across various immigration offices, the official said.

The e-visa scheme has been implemented by foreigners division of the home ministry with a view to improve the efficiency and transparency of various services being provided to foreign nationals.       The e-visa facility is now available for nationals of 163 countries for entry into India through 25 international airports and five sea ports, another official said.

Under the e-visa scheme, an applicant, when an online application is submitted, receives an e-mail authorising him or her to travel to India after it has been approved. The tourist can travel with a printout of this authorisation.

On arrival, the visitor has to present the authorisation to the immigration authorities who would then allow the entry into the country. The e-visa scheme also covers business and medical categories, apart from tourism. Visitors on e-Visa could stay in India for two months. The window for application under e-Visa scheme has been increased from 30 days to 120 days and duration of stay on e-Visa has been increased from 30 days to 60 days with double entry on e-tourist and e-business visa and triple entry on e-medical visa. PTI