India offers 'visa on arrival' facility to Japanese citizens

India 'visa on arrival’ facility will be brought into regulation for Japanese nationals starting yesterday, in a bid to improve inflow of holidaymakers and visitors for investments. The facility is being provided to the Japanese will be an upgradation of the e-Tourist Visa facility, offered right now to nationals of 150 nations. While e-Tourist Visa requires an online visa application, after which it is endorsed before arrival in India by Indian Immigration Authorities at selected Indian airports. Japanese national would not be required to experience this procedure anymore. An official statement by the Ministry of Home Affairs said that the Japanese will be given visa on arrival in India in any of the six assigned airplane terminals; namely New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. This facility can be profited for the reasons of tourism, business, medical and conference. Legitimate period of residency for this visa on arrival offer, after passage into India will be for a time of 30 days. The official statement said, "As announced by Prime Minister (Narendra Modi), the visa on arrival for Japanese nationals is being launched from (…) 1st March, 2016”. Around 1.80 lakh Japanese nationals visit India consistently on different sorts of visas last year. Business and Tourist Visas constitute around 78 percent of these. On an average, around 600 Japanese visitors touch base at the New Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) everyday. It is normal that extension of this facility to Japanese nationals will promote business and tourism ties between the two nations. Amid the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in December a year ago, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said that India will facilitate Japanese Citizens with 'visa on arrival'. Starting now, the visa on arrival facility will be offered only to Japanese tourists. However, this facility might be stretched out to more nations like the Republic of Korea in later months. For more news updates on ‘visa on arrival’ immigration to India, subscribe to our newsletter at y-axis.com. Source: Deccan Chronicle