New Delhi: The Directorate General of Civil
Aviation has instructed all airlines not to check-in any
passenger who has a Chinese visa stapled on his or her
passport.
The instruction, issued late last evening, asks all
airlines to "ensure that they do not check-in any passenger
with stapled Chinese visa on their passports," official
sources said here.
The DGCA instruction comes weeks after India declared as
"invalid" the standalone paper visas given by the Chinese
embassy here and consulates in Mumbai and Kolkata to Indians
from Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh.
A travel advisory issued by the External Affairs Ministry
last month asked those going to China to ensure that their
visas are pasted on their passports. "Such paper visas stapled
to the passport are not considered valid for travel out of the
country," it said.
Following the advisory, the Civil Aviation Ministry
issued a directive that passengers holding stapled visas
should not be checked-in for travel out of India.
In November, New Delhi had slammed this practice of
issuing separate visas "to certain categories of Indian
nationals on the basis of their domicile, ethnicity and/or
place of issue of the passport".
India also took up the issue with China at the highest
levels. Apparently, the Chinese embassy has not stopped the
practice, which has provoked New Delhi to issue the travel
advisory rendering separate visas as invalid.
PTI
