New Delhi

The Central government introduced regulatory relaxations to enable the issuance of visas within a day, given proper submission of all documents, stated a release.

Furthermore, two new portals--District Police Module (DPM) and Foreigners Identification Portal (FIP) were launched to strengthen the monitoring of illegal immigrants and foreigners overstaying their visas.

Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Bandi Kumar Sanjay, in a review meeting held on Wednesday with senior officials of the Foreigners Division, discussed policies on visa simplification, modernisation of immigration check posts and other related matters.

The minister was also briefed by officials on the steps taken to simplify visa procedures. The number of main visa categories has been reduced from 26 to 22, and sub-categories from 104 to 69.

Furthermore, due to the simplification of the process, average visa issuance has come down from several weeks to less than a day.

As part of the modernisation of Immigration Check Posts (ICPs), facilities for automated travel document scanning and biometric enrolment have been introduced. The number of ICPs has increased from 82 in 2014 to 114 at present (37 Air, 37 Land, 34 Sea, 6 Rail).

Officials stated that the Fast-Track Immigration - Trusted Traveller Program (FTI-TTP) is being implemented at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kochi, and Ahmedabad airports, where pre-verified travellers can obtain immigration clearance in just one minute.

This facility will soon be extended to Kozhikode, Lucknow, Thiruvananthapuram, Amritsar, Tiruchirappalli, Noida, and Navi Mumbai airports.

So far, about 50 lakh Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards have been issued, and the OCI portal has been revamped to provide more convenient services.

A user-friendly mobile application, "CAA-2019", has been developed to assist citizenship applicants from six specified minority communities in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

The Union Minister appreciated the officials' performance and directed them to take all necessary steps to ensure that travellers face no difficulties in matters related to visas and immigration.

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Sanjay further directed that all decisions and development works undertaken by our esteemed Prime Minister and Home Minister Amit Shah should be implemented at the grassroots level and reach the common people.