Ignoring concerns of 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 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. 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 authorization to the immigration authorities who would then stamp the entry into the country. Reportedly, Intelligence agencies had been opposing liberalisation of visa norms for Chinese tourists as they apprehended misuse like spying. However, 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.
last year 6,76,000 Indians visited China, while only 1,74,000 Chinese visited India in the same year, which shows a huge gap between inbound and outbound tourist flow between the two countries. Currently India is in the process of developing various circuits out of which Buddhist Circuit and Himalayan Circuit can be of great interest to the Chinese tourists coming to India. India is also organising an exhibition of contemporary art in Shanghai in November this year. 2015 is being observed as a ‘Visit India Year’ by China and 2016 will be ‘Visit China Year’ by India.