India Overhauls Visa Regime to Simplify Application Process

The Ministry of Home Affairs is overhauling India's national visa regime to simplify the application process and align it with global norms. The initiative follows a comprehensive review of the Visa Manual 2019 and a government meeting held in August.

As part of the restructuring, the ministry is reducing the number of main visa categories from 13 to nine and cutting sub-categories from 49 to 23. These changes will be applied across all visa categories and sub-categories to streamline the system.

To improve the user experience for applicants, the government will trim visa application forms by 70 percent. This process involves removing overlapping, repetitive, and redundant fields to create a more efficient and user-friendly application process.