indian tourist visa on arrival

has anyone got indian tourist visa on arrival? so if yes please give me feedback of this service.i just come to know that japan, luxamburg,singapore,newzealand ,finland people from these countries can get tourist visa on arrival.

I don't recall any posts by members that used it, but the link below has some usage info:

Visa on Arrival: The 6 month statistics.

thanx for this thread

And, the official rap at http://www.immigrationindia.nic.in/visa_on_arrival2.htm.

I don't recall any reports on it here either, but one assumes it means just what it says, so that you get a, eh, visa on arrival.

I suspect that the reason there haven't been user posts is that 1) the countries chosen for this (presumably) pilot program have relatively small tourist volumes and, 2) the VOA program is limited to 30 day visas. IM caters more to the longer term and repeat India visitor.

This is a quote from The Business Standard, Indias largest business newspaper. Sorry its not a link, but I cant find it....

Visa on arrival soon for 16 more countries
Sneha Kupekar / Mumbai April 18, 2010, 0:33 IST

The ministry of external affairs may soon extend visa-on-arrival to 16 more countries including France, Germany, South Korea, Belgium, Sweden, Vietnam, Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Spain and the Netherlands. This facility, introduced in January 2010, is at present available to tourists who arrive from Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore.

The Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata airports can issue this visa.

Of the 3 million or so foreign tourists who visit India every year, about four per cent can opt for a visa on arrival. This number is expected to go up to nine per cent, about 22,500 a month, with maximum visas issued to France and Germany. It is not known if the facility will be extended to USA and UK, which remain the biggest source of tourists to India. While 16.5 per cent of tourists to India come from US, 15 per cent come from UK.

Despite about 12,500 passengers every month being eligible for visa on arrival currently, the Delhi and Mumbai airports, which together account for 45 per cent of the total air traffic in the country, receive only around 650 passengers a month who opt for this facility.

An executive of Delhi International Airport said the airport has been sounded out to this effect by the ministry. “However, we do not expect the passenger traffic to go up in the short term as awareness of such a change in rules takes time, and people need to grow confident of being granted a visa after landing,” said he. “Passengers aren’t willing to take that risk initially.”

The important question is if the airports have the infrastructure to handle the additional tourist arrivals that the extension of the facility may cause. “We had a meeting last week to discuss the issue. The present facility is expandable and we can make the necessary arrangements quickly once we get the official directive,” an executive of Mumbai International Airport said. “The official communication is expected in about two months.”

Indian nationals are granted visa on arrival in 29 countries. These include countries such as Burundi, Tanzania, Bolivia and Sri Lanka.

Minister of State for Tourism Kumari Selja had said earlier that visa on arrival will provide a boost to the tourism sector. However, tour operators are cautiously optimistic of the possibility. “Just allowing visa on arrival won’t help the sector. The government also needs to promote India as a destination in these countries. The current visa on arrival is a single-entry visa with a validity of 30 days, and a tourist can come to India only twice a year on this visa,” said Karan Anand, the head of relationships and supplier management, Cox and Kings India.

The bold sections are done by me. The first two emphasise the "hit & miss" situation on Indian visas......of course people are not going to spend large sums of money non flights unless they are CERTAIN they will get the "visa on arrival" that they should be entitled to if they are from a qualifying nation!

The last section is hilarious, a top person in Cox & Kings describing a single entry visa as "only allowing two visits to India".... what chance do the tourists stand of getting it right?

What they probably mean is that a person can only get 2 visas on arrival per year - as opposed to travelling back and forth umpteen times and each time getting a new VOA.

So, you are a retired person, reasonably well off, and you are from one of the qualifying countries like Japan.....

You are brave enough to risk a visa on arrival and go to India for a holiday......

You really enjoy it an a couple of months go back again, and enjoy it even more.....

So a few months later, you think, lets go back and explore more of India...........



Has anyone told you that you are limited to two visits a year? I personally cannot find anything on the internet to confirm this.... Is this yet another Indian visa rule that the whole world is supposed to know intuitively?

"Hi welcome! You are one of the chosen few nations to get visa on arrival! (but dont come more than twice in a year as you will be refused entry, even though no-one has said anything about it)



Or could the BossWallah at Cox & Kings have been talking out of their rrrr's?

The old four week Visa on Arrival that was introduced sometime in the seventies and discontinued in 1982 (just before the Asian Games were held in Delhi!) also had this "only once within a six month period" restriction.

It clearly says so on the Indian Bureau of Immigration link I gave above:

I've not checked various international embassy and visa services' sites for you, nor the MHA's main site or similar, but maybe you'll find similar stipulations there.

I'm not saying it's all presented in a terribly clear or even always just simply up-to-date fashion (I don't think so -- or rather find it appallingly not so, but then I have the same issue with official online information for a lot of countries including my own --, and then with constant changes to the Indian rules these past years, it seems to drive even my visa services nuts), but just dotting your i's. That Immigration Bureau's site has just recently received a thorough overhaul btw, I can't vouch for its accuracy, but it's certainly become both a lot more informative as well as accessible.

Yes it does sir, sorry. My searches were on visa sites relavant to the priviledged nations and I missed your link.

You got to go to the source Luke !! Only then can the Force be with you

And my bl**dy Light Sabre had a power outage!

It would do, if you charged it here.

A strange mix - I would have thought that if one Schengen coountry was included they all would be (being a sort of 'visa entity').

AndyD 8-)#