Intelligence Bureau wants to background check all Chinese visitors to India

Delhi, 2 July : Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to China in May, had announced that the electronic tourist visa scheme will be extended for Chinese tourists.

Even as the Narendra Modi government has decided to include Beijing in the liberalised visa policy by extending the electronic tourist Visa (eTV) despite objections by security agencies, the Intelligence Bureau (IB) wants to keep a watchful eye on visitors from China.Sources said keeping in view the security threat, there is a view in favour of a stringent system to verify the antecedents of Chinese travellers. It is suggested that the Indian Embassy in Beijing be given the authority to check the background of each applicant and, if anything dubious is found, the mission can reject the visa. Sources said the embassy’s view will be final.”If the embassy, after getting inputs from intelligence agencies, feels that an applicant is suspicious it can reject it. In such a case, their decision will be final,” said an official. A similar system has been put in place for Sri Lanka that has been given the electronic tourist visa facility. Sources said as the facility is extended to more countries, a similar model may be adopted for some of them.A final decision on adopting this model will be taken after deliberations at the highest level, sources added. The eTV enabled by Electronic Travel Authorisation allows a visitor to apply for an Indian visa from his or her home country online without visiting the Indian mission and also pay the visa fee online. Once approved, the applicant will receive an email, authorising him or her to travel to India and he or she can travel with a print out of this authorisation. On arrival, the visitor has to present the authorisation to the immigration authorities who would then stamp the entry into the country.While the eTV is a complete online process, intelligence agencies want that for some countries there still needs to be a rigorous system in place. Currently there are 74 countries that are included in the list and a decision has been taken to include 31 more countries, including China and the UK.Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his visit to China in May, had announced that the electronic tourist visa scheme will be extended for Chinese tourists. And by March 2016, the government plans to include 150 countries in the electronic visa scheme. With the addition of more countries being added to the list, the modalities are being discussed to ensure that infrastructure is created at international airports across the country so that the facility can be extended at these airports.Initially, nine airports were to extend this facility to foreign tourists but seven more airports have now been added to the list. Jaipur, Amritsar, Gaya, Lucknow, Trichy, Varanasi and Ahmedabad airports will now cater to e-tourist visa scheme. The aim of making this facility available to more countries is to give a push to tourism in India. There has been a significant increase in the number of international tourists coming to India since this facility was implemented.