PM Narendra Modi announces e-visa for Chinese tourists

Beijing: Ignoring concerns of the intelligence agencies, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday announced that India will grant e-visas to Chinese tourists, making it the 77th country to get such a facility.

"We have decided to extend electronic tourist visas to Chinese nationals," Modi said addressing students and faculty at the prestigious Tsinghua University here.

His announcement came barely a few hours after Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar said "no decision has been taken yet" on granting e-visas to Chinese tourists.

When asked about extending e-visa facility to Chinese tourists, Jaishankar had said, "We are expanding it bit-by-bit (covering various countries). With regard to China, no decision has been taken yet."

Government sources dismissed apprehensions over the decision, saying the process of checks will be in place. They said the move was mainly aimed at removing middlemen.

Only a few days back, Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju had said in reply to a question in Parliament that the government has no plans to extend the e-Tourist Visa to Chinese nationals.

"At present government of India has not planned to extend the e-Tourist Visa (old name Tourist Visa-on-Arrival enabled with Electronic Travel Authorisation) programme to Chinese," he had said in a written reply.

Reportedly, the intellegence agencies had been opposing liberalisation of visa norms for Chinese tourists as they apprehended misuse like spying.

Under the e-visa system, an applicant receives an email authorising him or her to travel to India after it is approved and he or she can travel with a printout of this authorisation. On arrival, the visitor has to present the authorisation to the immigration authorities who would then stamp the entry into the country.

With the extension of e-visa facility for China, the total number of countries being provided the facility has gone up to 77 from a mere 11 countries in October 2014.