NEW DELHI: India is prepared to restart offering electronic visas to UK citizens. Earlier this year, this service was reinstated for practically all nations with the exception of a few, notably the UK and Canada. In a tweet sent on Monday, the Indian High Commission in London stated that it was ‘delighted to confirm that e-Visa option will again be accessible for UK people going to India’.
The visa website will soon be ready to accept applications from friends in the UK while a system update is under progress. It is ‘good news for UK travellers to India,’ according to Alex Ellis, the UK’s high commissioner to India. ‘ We are rolling out e-visas once again, and this facility will be made accessible to you immediately,’ India’s high commissioner to the UK, Vikram K Doraiswami, said. ‘ (Dates will be made public soon.) That should make visiting India much easier for friends from the UK. We’re glad you’re back; e-visas are just ahead, and you may still use all of our other services, such as visa delivery, if you’d like. We look forward to a good winer season in which everyone gets to celebrate their festivals in India which is the land of festivals’.
Anil Kalsi, joint secretary of the Travel Agents Federation of India, stated that the reinstatement of e-visas would greatly increase the potential for inbound travel to India because these are sizable markets. 1.1 crore foreign tourists and the remaining NRIs returning home to visit friends and family made up the 1.7 crore international arrivals in India prior to the start of the 2019 Countdown, which included a total of 1.1 crore foreign visitors.
According to government data for 2018, Bangladesh (21.4%), the US (13.8%), the United Kingdom (9.7%), Sri Lanka (3.35%), and Canada (3.32%) were the top five source countries for international travellers arriving in India. The tourism industry has been requesting that e-visas be reinstated since they are currently prohibited in some of these major source markets. For instance, to increase inbound tourism, the Travel Agents Association of India, a federation of over 2,500 travel agencies, asked the government to reinstate e-visas for all nations this summer.
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