An e-visa is an official electronic document that allows entry to travel to the country of India.All the foreign nationals need to apply online to get an e-visa but, there are some rules and regulations that they must follow.
The Government of India introduced an online tourist visa (e-visa) for around 43 countries in November 2014. It was done to promote the tourism of India, as travelers no longer had to visit the embassy and stand in a long queue to get their visa. Later in 2015, the country launched the concept of e-visa for other major countries. Again, In April 2017, India re-tooled its e-Visa program and introduced visa subcategories for tourists, business travelers, and medical visits. At present, the visitors from more than 160 countries can apply for an e-visa depending on their purpose to visit the country of India.
Who needs an Indian Visa?
Not everyone would need a visa to visit India. The foreign nationals from Bhutan and Nepal do not need a visa to travel the country and, even the citizens from the Maldives can enter India without any passport and, can stay for 90 days.
What is an e-Visa of India?
In many countries, e-Visa is substituting the traditional form of Visa. The applicants can apply for Indian visa online in which the traveler will receive an approval mail that would have a PDF with required details. It is essential to take a copy of it so that you can get visa stamping after entry, at the Indian airport. The stamping on the visa is valid for 60 days and allowed for three entries. If you are visiting India on a cruise ship, you can still get an e-visa.
A transit visa is required if you are staying for less than 72 hours in India. The visa can be applied with a confirmed airline ticket for leaving India, within the time. If you do not have a confirmed ticket, you need to take an Indian tourist visa.
An Indian tourist visa is applicable for those who are visiting India for tourism and other non-business-related issues. A tourist visa is applicable to visiting for recreation, sight-seeing, casual visits, and other events. All the foreigners, entering India are required to possess a valid travel document in the form of passport along with a valid visa. The travelers are required to fill and apply for the online application for getting the Indian visa.
No matter for how long a tourist visa is valid for, the visitor cannot stay for more than 90 days in the country. There should be at least two months of gap between your two visits on a tourist visa, even if you are visiting different regions of the country.If the visitor applies for another tourist visa within a month of expiration of their old one then, the processing may take up to 45 days. Also, approval needs to be obtained from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Eligibility for e-visa:
An online visa or e-visa is applicable for the tourists who are visiting for the purpose of tourism, medical treatment, short term business or family visit. The traveler should have the copies of their return ticket, consistent with the duration, they have mentioned in their application form.
How to extend your visa?
An Indian Tourist visa online are available from 60 days to six months. There are some countries whose citizens are allowed even ten years visa, for example-US citizens. Similarly, the citizens of France, Netherland, Spain, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Germany, Luxembourg, New Zealand, South Korea, Japan, Chile, Brazil, Vietnam, Mexico, Argentina, and others are offered five-year visas. Apart from that a tourist visa cannot be extended or converted into other types of visas.
Documents for an Indian tourist visa:
The visitor must have an original document with six months of validity and include two blank pages in it. Apart from that, passport size photograph, tour details, the residential proof is required. All the document should be submitted and, once the application is completed, the passport with the visa stamp will be mailed to the address mentioned in the passport.
Rejection of an Indian Tourist visa:
An immigration authority can only reject your Indian visa application when any of the information filled by the tourist is illegal or found to be wrong. Also, if the visitor does not have all the required documents as well as due to the illegible validity of the passport.