Visa-on-Arrival churns 54% rise
During February 2013, a total of 1,947 Visa on Arrivals (Voas) were issued as compared to 1,259 Voas during February 2012, registering a growth of 54.6%. The following facts are the highlights of the reasons behind the rise.
During the period January-February 2013, a total number of 3,637 VoAs were issued as compared to 2,618 VoAs during corresponding period of 2012 registering a positive growth of 38.9%.
The number of VoAs issued under this scheme during February, 2013 for nationals of the 11 countries were Japan (874), New Zealand (286), Indonesia (246), the Philippines (197), Singapore (171), Finland (110), Cambodia (18), Luxembourg (18), Vietnam (17), Myanmar (8) and Laos (2).
The number of VoAs issued under the scheme January-February 2013 were Japan (1403), New Zealand (653), Indonesia (427), the Philippines (406), Singapore ( 357), Finland ( 277), Cambodia (35), Vietnam (33), Luxembourg (29), Myanmar (14) and Laos (3).
During the period January-February 2013, the highest number of VoAs were
At all possible points, the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) scheme should be rolled out in potential source markets to India, especially those countries where there are no securityrelated issues in the past
issued at Delhi airport (2123) followed by Mumbai (792), Chennai (513) and Kolkata (209).
As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the Government launched the VoA scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries, viz. Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes. The Government extended this scheme to the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011.