Foreigners' arrival in India took big hit in 2021: MHA
DHNS New Dehli | 16 Nov 2022
Foreigners' arrival in India dipped by more than half in 2021 compared to 2020 when Covid-19 was at peak, if one goes by the annual reports of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). The figures are more dismal if one takes the 2019 figures, as last year's figure is just around 15 per cent.
The MHA annual report for 2021-22 showed that 15.24 lakh foreigners visited India between January and December of 2021 as against 32.79 lakh reported between April and December of 2020 in the 2020-21 annual report. The figures for 2019, the pre-Covid period was 1.09 crore, the 2019-20 annual report showed.
The latest annual report showed that the United States (4.29 lakh) topped the maximum number of foreigners who visited India in 2021 followed by Bangladesh (2.4 lakh), United Kingdom (1.64 lakh), Canada (80,437), Nepal (52,544), Afghanistan (36,451), Australia (33,864), Germany (33,772), Portugal (32,064) and France (30,374).
These 10 countries accounted for 74.39 per cent of the total arrival of foreigners during 2021 while the rest of the countries accounted for 25.61 per cent of total incoming traffic of foreigners.
"Owing to the situation arising out of Covid-19 pandemic and in order to control its spread, the MHA took a series of steps to curtail the inward/outward movement of international passengers (both foreigners as well as Indians) in a calibrated manner since February 2020. However, with the phased unlocking in India, the Centre has been relaxing the visa and travel restrictions in a phased manner since May 2020," the annual report said.
In March last year, the MHA had also restored the e-Visa regime with all the sub-categories for the nationals of 156 countries.
On deportation, the report said 821 foreigners were deported last year by the Foreigners Regional Registration Officers (FRROs). Most of the deported foreigners belonged to Nigeria (339), followed by Bangladesh (246) and Afghanistan (105), mirroring the 2019 trend.
In 2020 between April and December, 258 foreigners were deported and most of them belonged to Bangladesh (113), followed by Afghanistan (33) and Kyrgyzstan (22).
In 2019, India deported 1,233 foreigners and most of them belonged to Nigeria (547), followed by Bangladesh (230) and Afghanistan (94).
The 2021-22 annual report also showed that 2,439 Long Term Visas (LTV) have been granted by MHA for minority communities from Pakistan (2193), Afghanistan (237) and Bangladesh (9).
Besides, nine Pakistani civil prisoners and 15 Pakistani fishermen, who had completed their sentences, were repatriated to Pakistan while eight Indian civil prisoners and 20 Indian fishermen have been repatriated to India.
