India restores e-visas for Britons

India has restored e-visas for Britons wanting to visit the country, Indian High Commissioner to the U.K., Vikram Doraiswami said on Monday. The facility, which had been available since 2014 for five categories of travel including tourism and business, was suspended for all countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and had not been restored for the citizens of the U.K. and some other countries.

“The big news today of course is that we are rolling out e-visas once again,” Mr. Doraiswami said via a video message on Twitter. The curtailment of e-visas and difficulties getting visa appointments had frustrated travel plans for Britons, including planned family visits to India.

Two additional visa centres had been opened in the U.K. – one in Glasgow and a second in London in October and November respectively – to handle the growing backlog of applications. The High Commissioner had said in October that the intention was to double (i.e., increase by about 40,000 visas) the processing capacity each month, including by increasing hours at existing application centres and adding two new centres.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak had told the House of Commons on November 17 that he had raised the issue of e-visas with Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the G-20 summit in Bali which was held earlier that week.