Tourist visa registration possible these days? Change visa classification in India?

Has anyone got a new irony meter? The needle on mine just bent round the stop...

kmalik is no troll, and far from being "intemperate, offensive, and largely incorrect", his comments sound right on the money to me ... and to quite a few other people as well, whose numbers might surprise the individual who is taking umbrage. Maybe they're a little too close to the bone for a couple of folks here (ouch!), but if the shoe fits ... I think the only things kmalik missed out mentioning were the stupefying arrogance and insufferable air of entitlement that seem to characterize so many wrapped up in the Goa property issue.

AndyD -

I am definitely not trying to be offensive, and am sorry if you found them to be such. No offense is intended.

I do, however, have a perspective - rational but different than yours - on the matter that is being discussed. And, I do find the attitude towards the Indian law that underlies some of the polemic in the Goa property thread highly offensive. To the extent that I find traces of similar attitude in this thread, I am compelled to take that on - in as logical and rational a manner as possible.

It does get frustrating when rational and logical arguments are responded by gratuitous and dismissive comments and beer mugs. Also, when rational arguments are responded to by obfuscation or direct attacks. Example:

You wrote in post #25 -
And, in post #51 I gave a MHA link clearly stating that (a) tourist visa is granted for 180 days, and (b)it can not be extended in India, and (c) only visas granted for more than 180 days must be registered.

Your response:
So, it seems that when information contrary to your beliefs is presented, your response is to attack the messenger instead of considering the information.

In any case, my hope is that we can de-escalate and focus on the legally justifiable responses to basic questions such as maximum length of stay in a tourist visa, which is not nearly as fuzzy as some of the posts here have made them out to be.

PS: Many thanks to Dzibead, Haylo, Mach for their supporting comments!

To be fair, those three beers are just GoanGoan's signature I think. They're on all of his posts.

No reason to read anything into it; although GGG, they come across as a little funny sometimes on some of your more serious posts. As is evidenced by responses such as these. It apparently leads some to think you're taking the P out of them.

Whether you should mind that or not I'll leave entirely up to you. I probably wouldn't

Let me tell you about my experience:

Back around 2001/2002, it was quite easy for Germans to get 5 year tourist visa.
Some of us had a stamp on the visa, saying "has to leave the country every 180 days" and some didn't.

Close friends of mine, who had that stamp, even went to Delhi (Home Affairs) to have it removed. Successfully!
They flew back to Germany once a year for a month, and spent the rest of their time in Goa. Not once have they had any problems at the airport immigrations or elsewhere.

FRO in Panaji (Goa) did issue residential permits to those who did not have the stamp, including me.

I once stayed for 7 months, and when I left via Bombay, was accused of overstaying. Showing the guy my RC/RP helped and I was allowed to board my flight.

However, I DID have problems when I applied for the next visa. I was told I was overstaying, but once I provided them with a copy of my RC/RP was forgiven. They said, I should never have received a Residential Permit, but that I was not the one to be blamed for that.

My impression is that this whole confusion is caused by the Indian authorities themselves.
How hard can it be to point out these things unmistakeably.
Instead, it's more like a minefield, full of traps for the not-so-enlightened.

Yours,
Stephan

I'm so tempted to go to the MHA and tell them of the mess that the FRO are making in Goa and ask them to put a rocket under the FRO in Goa and get their act together. Jeez, Goa is an integral part of India, damnit, the "war" to "liberate" the Portuguese colony happened in 1961 - enough of indulging the local buggers in control, bribes or no bribes - Maharashatra ( the state next to Goa and yeah there's a political state rivalry issue here ) politicos have clout too - Manohar Joshi ( one of the Shiv Sena leaders), here I come;

Hang on, let me look at my TODO list...hmmm bit long at the moment, perhaps a decade or two from now.

But if some young Maharashtrian with time on their hands thought of taking it up ?

-skk

So effectively leaving every 180 days, one presumes.

They were correct, and you should have been aware of it, and you may consider yourself (quite) lucky. Others are barred from ever entering again, or at least in any foreseeable future (a decade has been quoted here, but I have no idea what that's based on. I've not personally heard of any definitive period for it.)

With grave reservations about joining this thread...:

So the takeaway from the past 80-odd posts is that staying over 180 days on a tourist visa is at best dicey and, according to the link in post #51, not legal, granted or not.

Immigration or visa officials aren't going to care much what the Goa FRO says or does should there be policy inconsistency. Given the pretty-much-accepted view that the FROs in smaller locales are often not the best informed, not exceeding the 180 days per visit seems prudent.

Er, I know you're half-kidding, but Shiv Sena and its offshoots have already and for some time been spreading their wings across state borders (and then funnily and typically falling out with such supra-regional divisions since they don't meet their "ethnic" standards -- but leaving their legacy nonetheless). No, thank you.

(Come to think of it, haven't such groups already been instrumental in some anti-Indian "outsider" drives in Goa, as they have been elsewhere in India?)

see next post

One works with the contacts one has, not the contacts one wishes one has; also I actually meant all those back channel pressures on the bureaucracy to get the lot in Goa to get their act together on enforcing the law, the "word in the shell-like", not public loutish demos and so on - and yeah, the point of "pact with the devil" is very well taken. But, I'm not kidding - except that I have other things much more important(to me) to do - nothing stops a young Maharashtrian with time on their hands though.

-skk

Nope, more like, every 300 days. Once a year, for a month. See?
180 days would be more like twice a year, not once.
To me it looks like neither the FRO, nor Home Affairs, nor any other authority had any clue, until some (obviously higher) authority gave the signal to handle things the strict way from then on.
Now, to those who say we should have known.
How exactly should we have known. You ask at the Consulate, and get a wrong reply.
Even experts of Indian Law have no clue, so how TF am I supposed to know any better?

Well, the opinion of immigration and visa folks of pretty much any country supersedes any logic, argument or evidence from the University of Google. The burden of conformance remains squarely in your corner.

You are quite right.

thank you for your reply, and yes, de-escalation is called for - mea culpa- but just for clarification: the comments I found offensive were:
some victims are innocent
one of the main complaints is that the laws* are not being enforced, they are being flouted by the State government

i.e. The 1908 Registration Act

AndyD 8-)#