e-FRRO app unveiled for foreign travellers
Mukesh Ranjan
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, April 13
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who on Friday launched a web-based application e-FRRO for foreigners coming to India, said it had been a “constant endeavour” of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to provide “fast and efficient” services to those visiting India have a pleasant experience of their stay here.
On ‘e-FRRO’ (e-Foreigners Regional Registration Office), Singh said it aimed at building a centralised and transparent online platform for the foreigners to avail visa-related services and to provide “faceless, cashless and paperless” services to them with user-friendly experience.
In a separate release, the MHA said the web-enabled platform would be “a quantum jump” in improving the ease of service delivery with respect to foreigners visiting and staying in India.
“In the new system, foreigners would be able to get 27 visa and immigration-related services in India from the comfort of their place of stay. Using the e-FRRO application, foreigners can apply online on the portal and obtain the service(s) through email/post without appearing in person at the FRO/FRRO office,” it said, adding that such a scheme was not available even in some of the most advanced countries in North America and Europe.
In 2017, more than 1 crore foreigners visited India and out of them nearly 3.6 lakh had to visit FRRO offices spread across the country for various visa-related services. With the launch of the online e-FRRO scheme, their physical visit to the FRRO offices thus been obviated, the release said.
According to officials in the MHA, the e-FRRO scheme has been implemented on the IVFRT platform with negligible extra expenditure, which is in addition to the already successfully running e-visa scheme. The e-visa scheme has earned revenue of more than Rs1,400 crore since its launch in November 2014, they added.
In the present system, foreigners staying in India on visa duration of more than 180 days have to get themselves registered with their respective FROs/FRROs. Similarly, foreigners requiring different kind of visa-related services such as visa extension, visa conversion, change of address, change of educational institutions, exit permits etc are currently required to visit the FROs/FRROs office.
How it will help
- No need to visit Foreigners Registration Office (FRO) or Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) unless asked to
- Immigration, visa documents to be sent to postal address and email ID
- Access to 27 visa and immigration-related services in India
