India’s VoA issue up 26%

NEW DELHI, 9 November 2012: India has issued 12,273 visas on arrivals, January to October, to citizens of 11 countries who are eligible under the VoA scheme.

According to a Government of India report released, Thursday, it represents a 26% growth on 9,739 visas on arrivals issued during the same period in 2011.

Nationals of 11 countries can use the VoA service at India’s international airports. In the ASEAN region this includes Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Thailand and Malaysia are excluded.

During January to October, this year, the highest number of visas on arrivals were issued to Japanese tourists.

Breakdown: Japan (,3478), New Zealand (2,346), Indonesia (1887), The Philippines (1,948), Singapore (1511), Finland (724), Vietnam (142), Myanmar (76), Cambodia (74), Luxembourg (78) and Laos (0).

The highest number of VoAs were issued at Delhi airport (7,264), followed by Mumbai (2553), Chennai (1726) and Kolkata (730).

During October, the Indian government issued 1,457 visas on arrival compared to 1,234 VoAs during October 2011 registering a positive growth of 18.1%.

The breakdown for nationals of the 11 countries were Japan (372), New Zealand (301),The Philippines (270), Indonesia (198), Singapore (198), Finland (77), Myanmar (3), Vietnam (16), Cambodia (6),Luxembourg (16) and Laos (0).

As a  measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the government launched the “Visa on Arrival” (VoA) scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries ( Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes). The scheme was extended for the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos and Myanmar from January 2011.

Sourced: ttrweekly