Visa on Arrival scheme registers 26% growth

NEW DELHI: With the facility of Visa on Arrival (VoA) for tourist becoming increasingly popular, the scheme has registered a growth of 26 per cent in 2012 as against 2011.

A total number of 16,084 VoAs were issued during 2012 as compared to 12,761 VoAs issued during 2011. The highest number of such visas were issued to the tourists from Japan (4,604) followed by New Zealand (3,150) and Philippines (2,444), according to Tourism Ministry data.

As many as 2,181 visas on arrival were issued in December last year as compared to 1,640 VoAs during the same period in 2011, registering a growth of 33 per cent.

As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the government had launched the Visa on Arrival scheme in January, 2010 for citizens of five countries -- Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore.

The scheme was extended to the citizens of six more countries -- Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January, 2011.

The maximum number of VoAs were issued at Delhi airport (9,596), followed by Mumbai (3,276), Chennai (2,273) and Kolkata (939).