Expats, tourists slam new regulations

On his first trip to Goa in October this year, Stephan Mason (name changed) learnt that the business visa that brought him to India in August was an “invalid document”.

The German, employed in the Mumbai office of a multinational firm, cut short his 10-day vacation and returned to his home country to remedy the situation. The ambiguity surrounding revisions to the Indian visa regulations has adversely impacted tourists and expatriates.

“No authority contacted me. My company stumbled on the changed provisions that now required me to have an employee visa,” said Mason. It took him three weeks to return with the visa. He is now registered with the Foreigners Registration Office and has only received a three-month residency permit.

Lack of transparency and standardisation in visa procedures is amounting to widespread frustration. Website consultant from Siberia, Denis Mysemko, has had to rethink plans to set up business in India.

For a year, he has been shuttling between the Indian embassy in Moscow, Ministry of Home Affairs in New Delhi and police stations in Mumbai.

“I return to Moscow every three months, gather documents only to come back and face police officials, who find humour in my plight,” said Mysemko. “My wife had no trouble acquiring a multiple
-entry visa because she is a homemaker. It is astounding that being businessman, who wants to invest in India, I have to deal with such bureaucratic complexity.”

Australian freelance journalists, Lisa and Keanu (names changed), chose India as a base for reporting on countries such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan, but the proposed “vague regulations” have them discouraged.

“If there’s a tsunami and I have to go to Thailand or Bangladesh to assess the impact, it would be absurd if I’m not allowed back for two months. If the two-month wait for re-entry is implemented, it would be the last straw,” Keanu said.