India opens 11 more ports to foreign e-visa holders

New Delhi: The Centre on Monday notified 11 additional international ports, nine land ports and two airports, to facilitate the entry of foreign nationals holding electronic visas.

The move is aimed at enhancing the attractiveness and utility of electronic visas. India clears about 95 per cent e-visa applications in less than 72 hours, the Union home ministry said in a statement.

Over the past years, several initiatives have been taken to liberalise, streamline and simplify the visa regime to facilitate legitimate foreign travellers while simultaneously ramping up the technological infrastructure to enhance internal security, the ministry said.

"With the latest addition, the total number of International ports enabling entry of E-Visa holder foreigners has increased to 88, including 37 airports, 38 seaports and 13 land ports," the statement said.

For liberalising and simplifying the visa regime, especially tourist visas, the government introduced the e-visa facility, along with electronic travel authorisation, in 2014 for nationals of 43 countries. It has gradually been expanded to cover nationals of 172 countries. E-visa is currently available under 17 sub-categories, including mountaineering and group visas for cruise. India now issues about 78 per cent visas as electronic visas, the statement said.

The government tightened the process of granting visas to foreign nationals in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. Canadian national Tahawwur Hussain Rana, extradited in the case early this year, had set up an immigration business, whose Mumbai branch served as a front for Pakistani-American terrorist David Coleman Headley to visit India and carry out reconnaissance for various high-profile venues, not limited to Mumbai, according to the National Investigation Agency. The attacks, carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants, killed more than 175 people and injured about 300.