JOIN USChinese tourists will have an hassle-free entry into India with the e-visa facility promised to them by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to the neighbouring country in May set to be rolled out from Thursday onwards.
Along with the Chinese, people from the Hong Kong and Macau special administrative regions (SAR) can avail the facility, which would allow people to apply and get visa over the Internet. With this, the total number of countries covered under the e-Tourist Visa scheme will go up from 74 to 77.
The e-Tourist Visa scheme was launched by the Government of India on November 27, 2014. The facility will be extended to more countries/ territories in a phased manner.
Under this scheme, tourists with e-tourist visas can arrive at nine designated airports -- Bengaluru, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Goa, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Trivandrum. Since the launch of the scheme, about 2 lakh e-tourist visas have been issued to nationals of different countries. During the last three years, a total of 1,79,873 tourist visas have been issued to nationals of China, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR.