Electronic visa system is called E-visa in short form. One can apply for this online for visiting other countries. Mainly it gives electronic travel authorization through the internet. India started taking electronic visa application from the year 2014. Through (electronic) E India Visa, Citizens of 180 countries can apply for the online travel authorization, which has been launched by the Government of India.
Types:
E India visa can be applied in the following purposes like – tourist visa, medical visa, medical attendant visa, business visa and conference visa. Tourist visa gives one month, one year and a maximum 5years with multiple entries. In one entry, it allows 90 days stay. Citizens from US, UK, Canada and Japan are allowed to stay up to 180 days exceptionally. Business visa allows a person to stay up to 60 days in a single entry and one year visa. A conference visa allows a maximum of 30 days. Medical and medical attendant visa give 60 days of stay in a single entry with triple entry limits.
Application process:
For online application a person need a valid passport, email address, debit Or credit card , mostly important thing is validity of passport. After this requirements submit own photocopies, scanned passport pages on the e-form. After online payment methods are done a Electronic Travel Authorization or ETA mail will be sent. It may take 4 to 5 business days to complete the whole online process. E-visa allows easy application for short time visit rather than normal visa system. Here we must know manual visa system may have complicated and delayed process but it allows visitors to stay 6 months to 10 years. Foreigners need to have a mandatory passport with 2 blank pages and a record where there will by no failure of 90 days staying visits. Even a minor can apply with photo ID and parental documents to visit India. There are other websites for e application for a visa, first, you have to register there to confirm data accessibility before starting the form filling. The online system supports 98 different foreign languages and 136 types of currencies. One must apply a minimum of 30days before traveling to India.
Costs:
The e-application costs may vary for different countries, but normally tourist visa costs $35 nearby, business visa, medical and medical attendant visa costs $45 from government sites. For one month, E-visa costs $10 to $25 for one year, it costs $40 approx and for five years $80.Some country citizens are also eligible for free visa services, such as Argentina, Fiji, Indonesia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, South Africa, Uruguay and Tonga. UK, US, Russia, Mozambique and Ukraine citizens have to pay $100. Srilanka, Singapore and Japanese citizens only pay $25 for one year and five years of E India visa. Some non-government sites provide this application process. They have a little high cost. For the normal application process, which takes five business days, the charge $78. If someone needs an early process within three days, they charge $108, and for emergency applications within two business days, they charge $143.
Scams:
Some websites give an advertisement for faster application procedures and charges a huge amount of fees. These are maximum fake websites illegally offering services to common people but genuinely scamming. Ministry of external affairs receives hundreds of complaints about losing dollars as fees.
Statistics: In the year 2014, the E-visa process started working in India. The number of foreign tourists increased yearly via this process. Here we can see in 2014 visited 39.05 thousand e- tourist, 2015 visited 445.3 thousand, the year 2016- 1080 thousand, the year 2017- 1697 thousand, the year 2018 it increased upto 2,369.94 thousand tourists. But lastly, in the year 2019, the rate decreased to 1,534.29 thousand suddenly.
Conclusion:
Manual visa process take time with lots of procedure and gives maximum days of stay and 10years of visa. For emergencies, it was not easy for common people to visit India. After an easy process of E India visa, the tourism of India increased. But there are complaints after stepping India that people have to wait for a long time in airports to get a stamp on their passport because of e-visa. Although those who want to explore a short visit or tour, they can apply on e-visa rather not to wait for a long manual process to happen.
