Tourists to get fast clearance at airports

New Delhi: Faster clearance at the immigration counters, being pursued hotly by the tourism and hospitality industry to facilitate quick and trouble free arrival of foreign travellers, may well be on the cards soon.
Coaxed continuously by the Tourism Ministry, the key ministries of External Affairs, Home Affairs and the Dept of Information Technology (DIT) are now working together to put in place a new IT-driven mechanism that will allow fast clearance to foreign passengers at the immigration counters, thus cutting the waiting time from 90 minutes to barely 10 minutes.
Earlier, the initiatives of the Tourism Ministry to get clearance for visa on arrival for 16 favoured countries were scuttled by the Union Home Ministry on the adverse comments by the Intelligence Bureau.
According to top official sources, concerns of both the Tourism and the Home Ministries can now be taken care by installing a revolutionary mechanism called the Adverse Person Information System (APIS) that would not only take care of the worries of the Intelligence Bureau but would also allow faster clearance to foreign tourists at the airports.
24/08/07 Newindpress

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Categories: Airports Aug 2007