TIRUCHI: There has been a marked rise in the number of foreign tourists availing themselves of the e-visa facility at the Tiruchi international airport.
The upward trend in the current year is evident from the fact that a little over 2,800 foreigners from various countries had already availed this facility at the Tiruchi airport till date from January this year.
The number of overseas e-visa users clocked in the past three-and-half months since the dawn of the current year at the airport has already reached the half-way mark of what was recorded in the entire 2016 calendar year.
Last month alone witnessed more than 900 overseas travellers having availed this facility upon arrival armed with ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation) document generated online and a valid passport.
Airport sources said the number of e-visa users had actually doubled from January to till date as compared to the corresponding period of the previous year. There has been a definite rise in the current year, the sources said adding that a total number of 5,828 foreigners had availed this facility from January to December last year.
There are strong expectations that the trend would only increase in the coming months. Witnessing a robust growth in overseas passenger traffic, the Tiruchi airport is a unique one with more foreign flight operations than domestic services.
Tiruchi at present has direct connectivity to Colombo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Dubai and Sharjah operated by five foreign carriers. With a view to boosting tourism in the country, the Central government had extended the e-visa facility to seven non-metro international airports including Tiruchi in August 2015.
Dedicated counters with necessary technical infrastructure were put in place at the international terminal building here exclusively to handle those foreigners availing e-visa facility. Malaysian and Singaporean nationals were on top in availing this facility at the Tiruchi airport followed by Sri Lankan citizens, the sources said.
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The sources further said the Central government had extended e-visa scheme for business and medical purposes also apart from tourists. This has come into effect from April 1.
The government has enhanced the duration of stay for foreigners availing e-visa for tourist purpose from 30 days to 60 days now with double entry. For those availing e-visa for business purpose, their period of stay in the country is 60 days with double entry.
In respect of overseas nationals using e-visa for medical purposes, the duration of their stay in the country would be 90 days with triple entry within the stipulated time, the sources further said.
The central government has made available e-Visa facility for overseas nationals of over 150 countries to enter the country through the designated airports.
