India eases visa policy for Afghans

Kabul, Feb 3: To boost people-to-people ties, India has further liberalized the visa policy to make it easier for Afghans visiting India, the Indian embassy said on Friday.

The duration of a tourist visa has been enhanced to one year with continuous stay of 90 days during each visit as against the existing 30 days.

The provision of a gap of 60 days between two tourist visits remains.

Also, to promote and encourage Afghan businessmen to visit India, their visas too have been liberalized.

"Henceforth, Afghan businessmen investing in India or having a large trade turnover with India, depending on volume of their investment/trade, shall be issued Indian visas for one to five years, with continuous stay of up to 180 days during each such business visit, subject to production of relevant business documents," an embassy statement said.

The embassy said it was confident that these changes "would further strengthen the historic people-to-people and business ties between our two countries".