India is about to permit international vacationers again into the nation from later this week, altering its Covid-related journey restrictions to grant new vacationer visas to sure arrivals.

The nation’s Ministry of House Affairs introduced that visas will initially be granted solely to travellers arriving on chartered flights from 15 October, earlier than being prolonged to these arriving on industrial flights from 15 November.

These mid-October arrivals would be the first vacationers into the nation in 19 months.

No vacationer visas have been issued since March 2020, when Prime Minister Modi’s authorities closed borders to international nationals in response to the pandemic.

Different international visas, equivalent to these for diplomats and enterprise figures, had been reinstalled in latest months, however the authorities has held off allowing vacationers till now.

“After contemplating numerous inputs, the MHA (dwelling ministry) has determined to start granting recent vacationer visas for foreigners coming to India via chartered flights with impact from October 15, 2021,” learn the assertion from the Ministry.

“All Covid-19 protocols and norms notified by Ministry of Well being & Household Welfare to be adhered to by international vacationers, carriers bringing them into India, and different stakeholders at touchdown stations,” it continued.

Vacationers who already held a visa for India must get recent ones, the assertion clarified – all present vacationer visas issued earlier than 15 October shall be void.

Travellers must undergo thermal screening and take a PCR take a look at at arrival on the airport in India, no matter vaccination standing, and take one other take a look at on day eight of their journey.

The restrictions on British nationals, nevertheless, stay complicated: arrivals from the UK into India will nonetheless must take a PCR take a look at inside 72 hours earlier than arrival and quarantine for 10 days after, a measure introduced earlier this month in response to comparable restrictions positioned by the UK on Indian arrivals.

Final week the UK introduced a leisure of its entry necessities for vaccinated arrivals from India, with the change coming into impact right now, 11 October, resulting in hopes that journey guidelines shall be simplified for British travellers to India in return.

Tourism is massively vital to India – the World Journey and Tourism Council calculated that in 2018 that it accounted for 9.2 per cent of India’s GDP that yr, and supported greater than 42 million jobs.

No vacationers shall be allowed in through India’s land borders, the assertion confirmed, specifying entry by “water routes or by flights” solely.