Enhanced security at 178 Indian missions
GUARDING BORDERS Biometric scanning, enhanced information sharing to play a vital role in boosting security for tourism, business
NEW DELHI : The government is speeding up the process to collect biometric information of all those who visit India at its missions when they apply for a visa as part of augmenting its security measures in line with its policy to promote tourism and business.
The facility is now available in 78 missions. Government sources said it would be rolled out in all 178 missions within a year.
“Various measures are in place to ensure that the visa regime of the country is a facilitator to genuine travellers. The effort has been not to compromise security while ensuring the travellers are not inconvenienced,” explained an official.
This effort falls within the ambit of the Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT), kick-started in 2010 under the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
The scope of the project is to bring 178 missions, 77 Immigration Check Posts (ICP), five Foreigners Regional Registration Offices (FRRO) and Foreigners Registration Offices (FRO) in state/district headquarters under a secure, service delivery platform.
In other words, details of a traveller’s identity at a mission’s ICP, FROs are ascertained through the use of intelligent document scanners and biometrics, foreigner details of entry and exit points are updated, tracking of foreigner’s whereabouts is improved through information sharing.
As part of its ongoing liberal visa policy, India now gives E tourist-visa to nationals from 150 countries whose ‘sole’ objective of visiting India is recreation , sightseeing , a casual visit to meet friends or relatives, short duration medical treatment or casual business visit. Pakistan nationals and Pakistani-origin people are exempted from getting en e-tourist visa. And India issues visa on arrival for Japanese nationals.
Biometric details of the foreigners visiting India on e-Tourist Visas (e-TV) are captured on arrival at 16 designated Indian airports.
“As of now this is the arrangement. We keep on reviewing the measures in place and change them should we need to,” said the official. The number of applications for e-visas shot up over the past two years. The number of e-tourist visas issued in March 2016 was 115,677 against the 14,083 in December 2014.