THE Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced on Thursday that it is fully implementing the Philippine e-visa system in India.
After a successful soft launch and beta testing in August 2023, the DFA has officially launched the e-visa operations at the Philippine Embassy in New Delhi and all three Philippine Honorary Consulates in India (Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai) as of Oct. 28, 2024.
Enhancements to improve user experience have been integrated into the e-visa system in collaboration with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT).
With the system’s full implementation, the DFA said Indian nationals might apply for e-visas remotely by visiting the official website evisa.gov.ph and paying e-visa fees online via secure direct bank transfer.
As of Oct. 31, 2024, at least 7,259 applicants had been issued e-visas. The applicants accessed the e-visa system with general ease and reported positive feedback for its convenience, user-friendliness and reliability.
The first e-visa holder from India entered the Philippines on April 13, 2024, during the e-visa beta testing, and passed through immigration counters smoothly.
This milestone affirmed the full integration of the e-visa and the e-travel registration system in coordination with DICT and the Bureau of Immigration (BI).
As with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s policy directive in January 2023 on issuing e-visas to Chinese and Indians, the DFA said that full implementation of the system was announced, as the deliverable was in line with the Philippines’ digital transformation agenda, during the president’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 22, 2024.
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