Ahead of the proposed introduction of visa on arrival at the international airport here, a top-level team inspected the airport on Tuesday to ascertain the infrastructure-related requirements prior to implementing the facility.
The team, comprising the Foreigners Regional Registration Officer (FRRO), Chennai, K.A. Senthilvelan, a senior official from the Ministry of Civil Aviation, a technical director from the National Informatics Centre and Tiruchi airport’s Joint General Manager, Air Traffic Management, K. Jebaraj, spent nearly two hours at the airport studying a range of aspects.
The FRRO gave a brief introduction on the identification of the area for issue of visa on arrival for tourists and the additional infrastructure that needed to be provided by various agencies for implementation of the facility.
The team inspected the immigration arrival area in the new international terminal building assessing the availability of space and the extra infrastructure required including power supply. It identified the transit area for issuance of visa on arrival for overseas tourists upon landing at Tiruchi, airport sources told The Hindu .
The identified space in the first floor would have two dedicated immigration counters for issuing tourist visa on arrival and connected with the existing counters at the ground floor.
A suggestion was made to make the two counters on the lines of the ones at the New Delhi international airport wherein two immigration officials could be accommodated in a single counter to examine the travel documents of two passengers at a time, a senior official said.
The team also identified the waiting area and the discussed the feasibility of providing toilets in the transit area for the waiting overseas tourists. Facility for tourists for filing the required documents and taking photocopies of documents besides being photographed was also discussed.
Consequent to the inspection, a detailed report would be forwarded to the Central government which had identified Tiruchi airport for implementation of the facility along with six other airports to promote and facilitate tourism in the country.
