 "India may ease visa regime to boost tourism")
Also on the cards are online applications from visa applicants and a proposal to provide Schengen-like convenience to Indian visa seekers.
“We have made a set of recommendations to the home ministry to liberalise the visa regime, which will not be looked into from a security point of view before coming at a conclusion,” Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told Business Standard after a high-level meeting with officials from tourism department, home ministry, intelligence bureau and National Security Advisor Shiv Shanker Menon.
According to another senior Planning Commission official, there was a broad consensus in the meeting on liberalising the overall visa regime.
The visa-on-arrival facility is proposed to be extended the US, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Australia, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Belgium, Austria, Denmark, Poland, Norway and Ireland, among others.
India already offers visa-on-arrival to Japan, Finland, Singapore, Indonesia, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar.
One of the recommendations is to bring down the number of categories of visa from the existing 16 to just three. “There should be just three categories of visa - employment visa, business visa (for people who travel frequently) and visitor visa (which will cover all other types of visa requirements),” said an official.
He added that while the home ministry has agreed that visa-on-arrival can include more countries, it is of the view that there’s a shortage of staff.
In the meeting, the Planning Commission proposed that India’s tourism offices across the world be closed down.
Giving a boost to the tourism at this point will help the government, which is battling a widening current account deficit (CAD), officials said.
The CAD is the difference between inflow and outflow of foreign exchange. During 2012-13, CAD was at an all-time high of 4.8 per cent of the GDP or $88.2 billion.
The government proposes to bring it down to $70 billion or 3.8 per cent of the GDP.
In 2012, India received 6.58 million foreign tourists, up 4.3 per cent over the previous year.
But this was lower than the 9.2 per cent growth in 2011. India’s foreign exchange earnings in 2012 from tourists were $17.74 billion, an increase of 7.1 per cent, year-on-year.
Foreign exchange earnings from tourism from January to August 2013 were $12.025 billion with a growth of 6.7 per cent, compared with $11.273 billion year-on-year.