Visa on Arrival in India for 5 Countries

[darkside_of_d_sun]

India to introduce visa on arrival for five countries - India - The Times of India

IMO, this is not required! Visa for general citizens should be a reciprocal approach and I dont see a reason why we have to bend over backwards to provide VOA to countries who are only too happy to keep away Indians from their shores.

Tourism can be promoted more vigorously domestically, I mean with a 700 million middle class population, we are not in the same category of Thailand in terms of domestic tourists.

Also, can the government vouch that a New Zealander or a Japanese national wouldnt be a terrorist? Why experiment for one whole year putting Indian lives at stake?

 

[devashishdhingra]

Thailand economy runs on two things, tourism and s-x. Rest every thing is imported hence one would notice that hotels, transport etc are very cheap in Thailand in comparison to India. India attracts international tourist for its heritage which we have carried for centuries and therefore VOA does not sound too good idea. With the increase of terrorist activities in India, the security checks needs to of the Optimum level.

The idea is not to disperse the tourism in India but should be made India a safer place for both Indian and Foreigners.

 

[Yogesh Sarkar]

Tourism can be promoted more vigorously domestically, I mean with a 700 million middle class population, we are not in the same category of Thailand in terms of domestic tourists.

While I completely agree with you on this thing, I also agree with the reasoning put forward here:

The scheme has been introduced for one year. The countries have been decided on the basis of being potential source markets for India without security concerns.

India to introduce visa on arrival for five countries - India - The Times of India

In any case, unless the government was already carrying out rigorous background checks for the above countries, before granting them visas, I don't see how this move will have an impact on India's security.

 

[darkside_of_d_sun]

In any case, unless the government was already carrying out rigorous background checks for the above countries, before granting them visas, I don't see how this move will have an impact on India's security.

Thats where I am worried about. Knowing our intelligence capabilities (or lack of it) how can the government take such a risk?

Also, would there countries ever give Tourist Visa on arrivals to Indians? So why should we?

Cheers,
Shamik

 

[MonkeyBoy4u]

All of these countries look at Indians like illegal immigrants rather than tourists the only exception being maybe Singapore

 

[devashishdhingra]

Thats where I am worried about. Knowing our intelligence capabilities (or lack of it) how can the government take such a risk?

Also, would there countries ever give Tourist Visa on arrivals to Indians? So why should we?

Cheers,
Shamik

Only Thailand and Singapore are offering free visa on arrival, apart from Nepal and Bhutan where no visa is required.

 

[devashishdhingra]

All of these countries look at Indians like illegal immigrants rather than tourists the only exception being maybe Singapore

Not only India, same issue is faced with other Indian Subcontinent Countries.

 

[cat]

It doesn't make sense to me.

Singapore, Finland, New Zealand, Luxembourg and Japan ... "potential source markets for India without security concerns."

ok, it is for their convenience. But I don't see that it is so inconvenient, if at all, for people in Japan and Finland and NZ to do the normal thing of submitting the form to the consulate and collecting it a few days later. It would only be inconvenient when the consulate is far away from where the person lives.

Security checks...would only be done with some few countries; the others, there is just a standard procedure for issueing tourist visas - like Yogesh says, it is not done anyway, for those 5 countries and others.

Note that although a visa is issued by the consulate, entry still depends on immigration control at the port of entrance - in most cases it is there that any passport check is done, to check if the passport is blacklisted or something.

The security is applied at entry point. Terrorists like those two that are supposed to be involved in organising the Mumbai attack, they are submitting false passports when they apply for visas. The others that come by boat or across some border don't have visas.

 

[darkside_of_d_sun]

How India issues tourist visas is laughable! You just fill up the form, submit the money and the passport and some photos and pickup it up duely stamped after 5-7 working days. No checks, no verifications are conducted for majority of the countries.

This is a prime example of our government bending backwards to please whomsoever is concerned.

 

[cat]

I do not pay! Special relationship. But had to pay Rs3500 for amerikan wife.
I have only praise for India consulate in SA and the govt dept involved.

Other than that, there is some reason / some explanation in how it is being done. See you later.