India emerges as favourite for UAE nationals

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Save & Share Article

What’s this?

Digg	My Yahoo	Fark
del.icio.us	Newsvine	Reddit

Rate This Article

Rating:  0

With destinations in the West becoming expensive, the number of UAE nationals travelling to India this summer has risen significantly.

About 12,000 tourist visas have been issued by June this year in comparison to the 6,000 issued this year, Manish Kumar Sinha, consul, at the Indian consulate said.

"One of the main reasons for the swelling numbers of UAE nationals heading for India is primarily health and medical check-ups," he adds.

In view of the heavy rush of tourist visa seekers, the Indian consulate in Dubai has advised those wanting to visit India to approach well in advance of their journey date. Visa processing takes at least seven days from the date of submission.

The overwhelming rush of visa applicants has led the visa section at the consulate to work on the weekends (Friday-Saturday), he said, adding that the extra hours put in by the staff at the section is because "we need to clear the backlog. "The visa processing time is five days, on the sixth day we deliver the visa to Empost and it is delivered to the applicant on the seventh day," said Sinha.