Travelling to India will be made easy once the electronic travel authorisation to visit the country becomes operational, Tourism Secretary Parvez Dewan said.

In a major step aimed at boosting tourism, government has already decided in principle to give the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) to travellers from 180 countries starting this October.

Barring the eight prior reference countries, which includes Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, government has decided to give e-visa to all the 180 countries.

During the past year, India had considerably relaxed its visa regime and expanded the Visa-on-Arrival (VoA) scheme, Dewan said at a FICCI event in New Delhi.

Currently VoA scheme is available for 11 countries including Japan, Vietnam, New Zealand, Philippines and Singapore.

The extension of VoA and electronic travel authorisation to citizens of 180 countries will be implemented initially at nine airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Goa and Trivandrum.

Dewan said a dedicated helpline for inbound tourists will be launched in a year. “Tourism Infoline in 12 languages will become operational in about a year,” he said.

In order to provide information regarding tourist-related facilities and services available in the country, Infoline, a dedicated call centre, will be made operational by the Tourism Ministry.

The Infoline would provide all required information and assistance to inbound and domestic tourists before they undertake the tour as well as after their arrival at their destination.