With e-tourist visa facility set for a launch at the Tiruchi international airport, a top officer from the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) from Chennai visited the airport and ascertained the pace of the ongoing works connected with its implementation on Thursday.
The Foreigners Regional Registration Officer , Chennai, K.A. Senthilvelan, inspected the preparedness with regard to the implementation of the facility at the airport from where overseas flights to different foreign destinations are operated every day.
Accompanied by senior immigration officers, Mr. Senthilvelan inspected the four immigration counters established on the first floor of the new terminal building where the travel documents of foreign travellers would be checked prior to issue of e-tourist visa on arrival.
The immigration personnel would work in two shifts – one during day and another at night. Sources said 90 per cent of the works connected with the e-tourist visa facility had been completed at Tiruchi airport. The BoI, Airports Authority of India, and the National Informatics Centre are involved in the implementation of the e-tourist visa facility which is expected to give an impetus to movement of foreign travellers to Tiruchi and the central region as a whole.
The sources said the NIC had supplied the electronic gadgets required for the facility and final touches were under way for its implementation.
Another round of training connected with e-tourist visa formalities is expected to be imparted to the immigration personnel deployed at the airport prior to its launch.
Over 40 immigration personnel had been trained in e-tourist visa formalities in Chennai. Dummy checks would be carried out at the airport prior to the launch of the facility.
The officials are hopeful of its launch either by this month or in the first week of August. Tiruchi is one of the seven non-metro airports identified by the Centre for the implementation of the facility.
The other airports are Jaipur, Amritsar, Varanasi, Gaya, Ahmedabad, and Lucknow.
Under this facility, foreign tourists would have to apply online a few days before their departure.
Upon receiving the Electronic Travel Authorisation online, the tourists would have to carry with them a print out of the approval along with other travel documents during their trip.
The authorisation would have to be shown to the immigration personnel upon landing at Tiruchi airport after which the visa stamping would be done in their passport, the sources said. The tourists would have to head back to their country before the expiry of the e-visa.