The Central Government is planning to restart the process of issuing tourist visas soon in a bid to boost the economy as daily COVID cases in the country have come down. The same was recently confirmed by a Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) official.
As of now, it is likely that the government will allow only vaccinated people to apply for tourist visas. Referring to this, the official added that the process will be carried out in a phased manner and as per feasibility.
As the COVID situation in the country improved, the government announced some relaxations in the visa rules, but never resumed issuing tourist visas. Currently, the proposal is being considered so as to open an avenue to boost the economy.
A senior MHA official also confirmed that things have been formalised, and a meeting will be held in the Ministry of Home Affairs that will be chaired by the Home Secretary to discuss plans to resume tourist visas.
As per the reports, tourist visas have stayed suspended since March 2020, i.e., from the day the first lockdown was announced. After that, although several categories of visas like employment, business and others were exempted, tourist visas remained suspended.
If reports are to be believed, before the tourist visas were suspended, around 7-8 lakh tourists used to visit India every month. Reportedly, several other countries have also resumed the process of issuing tourist visas; negative RT-PCR tests remain the criteria for international travel as the proposal of a vaccine passport did not receive unanimous support from a number of countries.
