India further liberalises visa policy for Afghan nationals

KABUL: Seeking to enhance people-to-people contacts and trade ties, India today further liberalised its visa policy for Afghan nationals to make it easier for them to visit the country.

"Embassy of India, Kabul is pleased to inform all Afghan nationals that with effect from February 1, 2017 Indian visa regime has been further liberalised to make it even more convenient for Afghan nationals to visit India," the Indian Embassy here said in a statement.

The duration of a tourist visa has been enhanced to one year with continuous stay of 90 days during each visit as against the existing provision of stay of 30 days.

The provision of a gap of 60 days between two tourism visits, however, remains unchanged, the statement said.

India promotes and encourages Afghan businessmen to visit India to further enhance Indo-Afghan trade ties. Henceforth, Afghan businessmen investing in India or having a large trade turnover with India, depending on volume of their investment/ trade, would be issued Indian visas for a duration of 1 to 5 years, with continuous stay of up to 180 days during each such business visit, subject to production of relevant business documents, the statement said.

"Embassy of India, Kabul is confident that these changes in the visas regime would further strengthen the historic people-to-people and business ties between our two countries," it added.