Number of visa on arrival goes up 20 pc this year
New Delhi, Feb 12 : The issuance of ''visa on arrival'' (VoA) has gone up by 20 per cent this year as compared to last year.
The government had launched the scheme in 2010 to attract foreign tourists to India.
The highest number of visas were issued to Japanese nationals (529), followed by New Zealand (367), the Philippines (209), Singapore (186), Indonesia (181), Finland (167), Cambodia (17), Vietnam (16), Luxembourg (11), Myanmar (6) and Laos (1).
A total number of 1,690 VoAs were issued last month as compared to 1,359 VoAs issued in January 2012.
During January 2013, the highest number of VoAs were issued at Delhi airport (901) followed by Mumbai (427), Chennai (267) and Kolkata (95).
In 2010 the scheme had been launched for citizens of five countries -- Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore, visiting India for tourism purposes.
The government extended the scheme to the citizens of six more countries, namely Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Myanmar in January 2011.