- Thursday, April 25, 2024
By: Admin Super
After the full brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic started to become more manageable, many countries have opened their borders again, everyone is eager to travel. India, too, has been allowing tourists in again since 15 November 2021. However, to visit this culturally rich and diverse country, you need to have a visa. Here you can read how to do this and what you should know.
What is the Indian evisa?
Since 2015, it has been possible for European and UK tourists and business travellers to apply for an Indian visa electronically. This e-visa is issued in pdf-format and does not need to be affixed to your passport instead of the physical visa. The visa is easy to apply for online and once approved will be sent by email within a week. This means you no longer need to visit a consulate or embassy to have the visa inserted in your passport. Please note that minors also need to have their own visa.
If you plan to travel to India in a very short time, you can apply for an urgent visa. Emergency applications have priority over regular applications and are immediately approved for submission in India. Thus, urgent applications for India are usually approved within 24 hours. However, no full guarantee can be given as in exceptional cases the processing time may take longer.
Evisa unavailable to certain countries
Ever since the re-opening of the borders after the height of the pandemic, most countries can make use of the evisa, which is must faster and easier to apply for than a paper visa. However, certain countries have been sanctioned from utilizing the eVisa. Including The United Kingdom, Canada, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other countries. Some of the countries on this list seem to have had previous issues regarding visas for Indian nationals.
For example, Canada has been accused of rejecting visas from Indian travellers on a large scale, many travellers waiting up to 9 months for an electronic travel authorization that should only take a few hours. The UK applied extremely intense rules to travellers from India during the pandemic, proclaiming India a high risk country. There are assumptions that the current exclusion of these two countries from the evisa program is related to these issues.
Validity and duration of stay of the visa India
The Indian evisa has a validity of 30 days which starts from the moment your visa is approved. This means that within these 30 days you may enter India. The period of validity is indicated on the visa. You may still decide to enter India on a day other than the one indicated on your passport, even after your visa has been granted. You do not need to notify the immigration authorities as long as the new date is within the 30-day validity period from the date of grant.
You may stay in India for a maximum of 30 days. However, this is separate from the validity period of the e-visa. You must arrive in India within the 30-day validity period, but your departure date can be outside this validity period. For example, if you choose to enter India on the last day of the validity period, you may still stay in India for 30 consecutive days.
Completing the Indian evisa application form
To apply for your Indian visa, you must complete an online application form which takes no more than 15 minutes. Once you have filled in all your details, you can easily pay the visa fee via PayPal or credit card. After completing the payment, each traveller needs to provide a passport photo and a selfie to receive an Indian visa. If all details are correct and the documents are in order, your application will be forwarded to the immigration service in India. Once you have received your visa by email, you need to print it out and take it with you on your trip. It is advisable to keep it in your hand luggage so that you can easily present it during your trip.
