Delhi, Moscow eye visa-free travel for tourist groups

India and Russia are working to establish a visa-free regime for tourists visiting each other's country in groups, a measure aimed at expanding people-to-people ties.

Russia expects to resolve technical issues regarding the proposed move in talks with India in the near future, deputy foreign minister Andrey Rudenko told the media in Moscow ahead of next week's bilateral annual summit in Delhi.

"We really hope that we will receive a positive decision from the Indian side in the very near future and will begin to coordinate the agreement itself," Nikita Kondratiev, director at the Department of Multilateral Economic Cooperation and Special Projects, Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation, told the Russian daily Izvestia. "Among other things, we will work out the procedure for forming groups, the number of people in such groups, as well as the mechanisms of border crossing and interaction between tour operators."


In addition, India and Russia are intensifying negotiations on the mutual recognition of their national payment systems, RuPay and Mir, to boost bilateral trade and tourism, and the issue will be on the agenda for the India-Russia annual summit.