During the month of June 2014, a total of 2,112 visas were issued under the
“Visa on Arrival” (VoA) Scheme as compared to 1,062 VoAs during the month of June 2013, registering a growth of 98.9 per cent. During January-June 2014, a total number of 11,953 VoAs were issued as compared to 9,328 VoA during corresponding period of 2013 registering a growth of 28.1 per cent.
The number of VoAs issued under this scheme in June 2014 were: South Korea (663), Singapore (410), Japan (261), the Philippines (228), Indonesia (217), New Zealand (214), Finland (51), Myanmar (27), Vietnam (20), Cambodia (14) Laos (four) and Luxembourg (three).
The number of VoAs issued under the Scheme, during January-June 2014 were: Japan (2,564), New Zealand (2,080), Singapore (1,725), the Philippines (1,689), Indonesia (1,592), South Korea (1,225), Finland (600), Myanmar (217), Vietnam (116), Cambodia (72), Luxembourg (64), and Laos (nine).
During January-June 2014, the highest number of VoAs were issued at New Delhi airport (5,542) followed by Mumbai (2,428), Chennai (1,607), Bengaluru (820), Kolkata (782), Kochi (346), Hyderabad (305) and Trivandrum (123).
As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists to India, the Government launched the VoA Scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries: Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes. The Government extended this Scheme to the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011. Recently the Govt of India has extended Visa on Arrival (VoA) to South Korea for which the Ministry started receiving data from 15 April 2014.
