In a letter to the Union home secretary L C Goyal, tourism secretary Lalit K Panwar said that the compulsion of bio-metrics before issue of normal visa was acting as a dampener for the prospective international tourists wishing to visit India.
On the insistence of tourism ministry to do away with the compulsion of bio-metrics before issue of normal visa and take it at the point of immigration instead, the Union home ministry has said that it cannot be done away for security concerns and the foreign tourists should rather be encouraged to go for electronic tourist visa (e-Visa) that allows biometrics to be taken at the time of arrival.
In a letter to the Union home secretary L C Goyal, tourism secretary Lalit K Panwar said that the compulsion of bio-metrics before issue of normal visa was acting as a dampener for the prospective international tourists wishing to visit India.
The tourism ministry thinks that the move would help India increase its world tourist market share within three years to 1% from the current 0.68% that translates to 7.70 million foreign tourists.
The letter said that even foreign secretary, Jaishankar was of the opinion that bio-metrics before issuing a normal visa to potential tourists should be discontinues and the biometrics should be obtained at the point of immigration in our country.
The home ministry, however, considers that the e-Visa that has already been extended across 77 countries and is set to expand to 73 more countries very soon allows the foreigners wanting to come as tourist to give biometrics at the point of immigration.
"What is the need to take normal visa for tourists when the e-Visa is being extended under the Immigration, Visa and Foreigners Registration & Tracking (IVFRT) system to nearly all countries from where the tourist inflow comes. Once the biometrics of a particular person taken it saves him or her to give biometrics again," said ministry sources.
The data base of all the biometrics taken under e-Visa system would remain in the control of the bureau of immigration and helping them to detect entry of any suspicious person on the basis of records, sources said.
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