Post-Covid, pace of Indians travelling abroad yet to pick up

New Delhi, December 9

The domestic terminals may be overcrowded but fewer Indians are travelling abroad after the Covid outbreak, according to data from the Bureau of Immigration (BoI), which maintains departure and arrival data of Indians.

As against 2.24 crore Indians who left the shores in 2017, 1.83 crore have travelled abroad till November this year, the government told the Lok Sabha on Friday. The numbers had been steadily going up with 2.42 crore Indians travelling abroad in 2018 and 2.52 crore in 2019. But then Covid struck and only 66 lakh went abroad in 2020 and 77 lakh the following year.

Among categories, the number of Indians travelling on business visas has fallen to 4.64 lakhs as against 13.86 lakh in 2017, employment visas from 34 lakh in 2017 to 21 lakh till November this year. But 6.48 lakh Indians have left on student visas this year as against 4.53 lakh in 2017. The number of visitor visas has skyrocketed to 40.92 lakh till November this year as against 23.59 lakh in 2017.

The purpose of Indians going abroad is captured manually based on their verbal disclosure or the type of visa of the destination country, said Minister of State for External Affairs V Muralidharan. The number of Indians going to most developed countries has fallen. As against 4.14 lakh travellers to Australia in 2017, 4.03 lakh have gone this year.

Canada is an exception with 6.60 lakh Indians travelling this year till November-end as against 3.86 lakh in 2017. The UK also bucked the trend with 7.54 lakh travelling this year as compared to 6.21 lakh in 2017.

But France saw fewer Indians at 1.22 lakh this year as 1.75 lakh in 2017, so did Germany, which hosted 2.46 lakh Indians in 2017 as against 2.16 lakh till November this year. Similarly, 1.73 lakh Indians went to Italy in 2017 but the number is now down to 1.14 lakh.