INDIAN E-VISAS COMING JANUARY 2015

The newly-elected government of India under prime minister Modi has announced it intends to speed up implementation of the new electronic visa system. The first budget, introduced in July, gave civil servants a maximum of six months to have the first working phase of the new ETA system working at none major airports for up to forty selected nationalities.

Canadian tourists will be able to use this system, and it will save everyone a lot of time and money. The best news is that we will no longer have to surrender the passport in order to apply.

The basic idea is that a foreigner seeking a visa to India can apply for the visa on-line. The government of India will review the application and inform the applicant within five (5) days of the decision to issue (or refuse) the visa. The traveler then prints out their authorization and gets on the flight to India. Upon arrival in India tourists will undergo a biometric scan such as fingerprints or iris scans. Then they will receive the 30-day visa. The visa will be issued into the passport by immigration officials in the arrivals hall at the airport in India.

In the first stage of implementation, tourists can get the visas at the following airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Goa and Trivandrum.

However, while we wait for this great day to come, Canadians and everyone else will still have to apply for a visa the hard way. Click here for India visa information.