Visa on Arrival scheme witnesses 72% surge

The number of foreigners availing Visa on Arrival (VoA) scheme has registered 72% increase in January as against the same period last year.

There were as many as 1,359 foreigners, who availed VoA scheme in January as compared to 790 VoAs issued during January 2011, registering a growth rate of 72%, officials said.

As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists, the government had launched Visa on Arrival scheme in January 2010 for citizens of five countries -- Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore.

The government had extended the scheme to four more countries -- Combodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines -- from January 2011.

Encouraged by the response, the Tourism Ministry is now considering to extend the scheme to 14 more countries, including Germany, Russia, France and CIS countries.

"The proposal to extend the scheme to more countries is under active consideration by the government. We have also proposed to extend the facility to more international airports including Goa, Hyderabad and Bangalore," a Tourism Ministry official said.

Currently the VoA facility is available in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata airports.

The first month of the year also witnessed a growth of about 50% in foreign exchange earnings and 9.2% rise in foreign tourist arrivals in the country.

There were total 6.81 lakh foreign tourists in the country in January this year as against 6.24 lakh during the same month last year, registering a growth of 9.2%.

Forex earnings during January 2012 were Rs 8,623 crore as compared to Rs 5,777 crore in January 2011, a growth of 49.3%.