Indian Visa and Entry to India

I have a Tourist Visa which expires on 20th June. If I were to fly to India now, is the validity of the visa for ENTRY DATE (meaning I am allowed to arrive in India before 20 June) or does it actually restrict my stay in India to maximum date of 20 June?
I always assumed that vis was ws limiting entry date and that I would be allowed to remain in India for 90/180 (???) days
Can anybody enlighten me (even someone from Indian Immigration Department please?)

Read the visa it says end date - June 20th. Visa starts on the date of issue and ends when it says it ends

http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk/aboutyourvisas.html

http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk/news.html

If you have been an occasional visitor to India, you'd be probably aware of this already

I believe the validity of 6 months of the visa is for ENTRY into India; then the visitor is granted a maximum of 180 days stayu period. Even if you collect the visa in London valid for 6 months, travel to India and and arrive in India on the same day, you would not get to stay for 180 days because by the time you collect your passoport with visa stamped in, that visa is actually valid for less than 180 days! I have experienced a visitor to the UK whose multiple entry visa to UK was expiring in 14 days but was allowed to stay in the UK for a further 2 months! The validity of the Visa should apply the time limit to ENTRY only, not the duration of the whole stay in the country!!!!!!!!!!!

The power of positive thinking ain't gonna pan out on this one, pal.

You can enter India prior to June 20th and have to be out by June 20th.

As above for the one off UK tourist visa it starts on issue and terminates as per the stated date. You can cancel one & re-apply (at your expense) for a later end date. There are different visas for different countries. Even heard of someone getting a 5 year vala for a UK nationality recently with outstanding personality I would guess. If you were from certain countries in Europe it would be different..

What you believe is not germane here. Rather what the Indian Government says is, is. Again what UK does, or not has no bearing on what indian gummint does. If you claim you are an occasional visitor to India, then please look at your older visas You are welcome to act on your belief system.

Are there any more of those legendary UK 1 year valid, 6 months stay visas obtainable.?

Amazing and probably unusual, but... When you arrive in India, they consider one thing only: is your visa valid. When a visitor arrives in UK, they also consider, "How long are we going to let this person stay?" Thus, a visitor to UK with a six-month visitor visa may be granted a stay of only three months, or less. This is not uncommon.

I believe (never been there) that, technically, one can turn up at the USA the day before your visa expires and be granted a period of stay regardless of the expiry date. However, when this came up on this site, a member who is an American lawyer experienced in immigration work advised that it would be really crazy to rely on getting into USA that way.

Anyway, as already pointed out, this has nothing to do with Indian immigration practice, which is simply stated in the quote/link given by nycank above. No room for for assumption, confusion, or wishing it were not the case.
It seems, from postings here, that they are not as legendary as they used to be. A Brit giving a good reason for a 1-yr tourist visa seems likely, these days, to actually get one.

I have stayed in India between may 20 2011 to april 25 2012. I had to leave India in november because my 6 month tourist visa expired then. From India I contacted TT-services in Sweden that handles all visa applications from Sweden. I was glad to hear that if I enclosed a personal letter to my application explaining my reasons for going back straight away, I would get a new visa without having to stay 2 months outside India. I flew back to Sweden and got a new visa in 8 days. They stamped the old visa as not valid. When returning to Goa International airport I had some difficulties to enter although I had a valid visa! I have now learned that you can be denied entry even if you have a valid visa. I think it helped that I am a little bit older and can speak some konkani (I've visited Goa several times before). So be careful out there! OT: A guy from Ukraine was picked up by the cops for overstaying his visa for more than a year. He was thrown in jail and first after his friends could get a lawyer to bail him out, he could get out of jail, but he had to pay a steep fine and had to leave India straight away.He can't also return to India for five years. So my advice is follow the rules and even if you do that you can get into trouble.
Bholenath

This is true anywhere in world, especially if the immigration official suspects that the actual purpose of your visit isn't what is stated on your visa.

Commendable! Many people who visit Goa regularly and even stay there for long stretches don't even know what the local language is called.