The Visa on Arrival scheme, launched to boost tourist traffic from abroad, appears to be serving its purpose with 1287 visitors availing it in March this year as against 1089 VoAs issued during the same period last year, registering a growth of 18.2 percent.

According to a Tourism Ministry data, a total of 3905 VoAs were issued during January-March 2012 as compared to 2905 VoAs during corresponding period last year, achieving a growth of 34.4 percent.

Maximum visitors from Japan (369) followed by New Zealand (246) and Indonesia (212) came to India utilising the VoA scheme in March. However, only six visitors from Myanmar utilised the scheme.

The VoA facility is available only at four international airports - Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Chennai.

As a facilitative measure to attract more foreign tourists, government launched the Visa on Arrival scheme in January, 2010 for citizens of five countries - Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Singapore visiting India for tourism purposes.

The scheme was further extended for the citizens of six more countries including Combodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos and Myanmar from January, 2011. 

The government of India has decided to extend the facilities at Goa, Hyderabad, Kochi & Bangalore airports.