The flow of Maldivians to hospitals in Kerala, mainly Thiruvananthapuram, is plunging as the Indian government tightened the visa norms for Maldivian citizens. The fresh developments took place amidst Kerala government’s efforts to promote medical tourism. 

During the last year about 50,000 Maldivians visited India, of which majority were to Kerala for medical purposes and they were using visa-free travel facility. The Indian High Commission in Male has issued a fresh direction on Dec. 11 stating that visa-free travel facilities to India for Maldivian citizens would be valid only for tourism purposes. It also informed that due to technical reasons it would require one week’s processing time to issue visas for travel to India. Earlier it took only two to three days earlier.

First secretary at the Consulate of the Maldives in Thiruvananthapuram, Mohamed Farhad, said that the fresh directives have created lot of confusion among the Maldivians who have been planning to come to Kerala both for medical purposes as well as as tourists.

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