KUALA LUMPUR: India has further liberalised and simplified its visa regime for Malaysians to travel to the sub-continent.
The South Asian country has now increased the duration and number of visits for its e-tourist and e-business visas.
"In a series of efforts aimed at further liberalisation and simplification of the visa regime, the Government of India has decided to increase the duration and number of visits on e-tourist and e-business visas.
"Under the new policy, e-tourist and e-business visas will be valid for one year from the date of issue and multiple visits to India will be permitted as compared to two visits allowed within a window of 120 days of issuance of Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) with a validity period of 60 days in total under the earlier visa regime," the Indian Embassy said in a statement.
Last year, India announced that the eVisa fee for Malaysians travelling to India would be increased from RM200 to RM320, with the eVisa being only valid for four months.
The new rates were implemented on June 25, 2018.
In the process, the cheaper, over-the-counter six-month visa of RM194.56 was scrapped from July 1, 2018 and was replaced with a one-year visa of RM462.56, which does not include the service charge.
The tourist visa (single/multiple entries) with validity of up to one year for a visa fee of US$100, and the tourist visa for more than one year and up to five years (multiple entries) with a visa fee of US$200.
The statement also said that the visa fees and duration of other categories of visas remained unchanged.
India is the sixth top tourist generating market for Malaysia with a total of 552,739 Indian visitors recorded in 2017. Last year, from January to October 2018, Malaysia received a total of 495,620 Indian tourists.