{"id":177,"date":"2017-06-15T21:47:59","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T20:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/?p=177"},"modified":"2017-06-17T17:52:05","modified_gmt":"2017-06-17T16:52:05","slug":"a-visa-bly-much-better-experience-indias-e-visa-application-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/15\/a-visa-bly-much-better-experience-indias-e-visa-application-process\/","title":{"rendered":"A visa-bly much better experience: India&#8217;s e-visa application process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/evisa-300x227.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"227\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-178\" srcset=\"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/evisa-300x227.png 300w, https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/evisa.png 511w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/>Today, I&#8217;ve been mainly editing photos, scanning pages of passports and applying for our tourist visas.<\/p>\n<p>It was a lot easier easier than the last times I&#8217;ve done it.<\/p>\n<h3>Back in the day<\/h3>\n<p>In 2009 it was possible to do most of the application process online but you still had to send your passport off, or visit the office in Victoria and pay for the passports to be sent back, or collect them yourself days later.<br \/>\nYou were applying for a minimum of a three month visa and as soon as your visa was granted it started running out.<br \/>\nSo there you were, you&#8217;d spent a year saving up, planning the trip of a lifetime, booking flights and hotels and then had to wait until six weeks before you went to apply for your visa. If there was any trouble getting it granted because of missing photos\/documents you&#8217;d be panicking.<br \/>\nWe got our visas of course, we&#8217;re tourists, not anyone to cause any worry to the High Commission.<br \/>\nMove on two years to 2011 and I&#8217;d grown a little panicky from horror tales I&#8217;d read on the web, the High Commission were allegedly scrutinising everything and visas were getting denied first time through. I decided to take a lovely day trip to London with Amy get our applications processed and accepted in front of our eyes, meaning we only had to wait for the post to come a few weeks later.<\/p>\n<h3>How times change<\/h3>\n<p>My work friend Narinder travelled to India last year and told me about the new e-visa which she used. A simple process she said, much easier than before. I trusted her but thought to myself that the system would still probably be a pain in the arse.<br \/>\nHow wrong was I?!<br \/>\nIt really seems simple now &#8211; fingers crossed though, the visas haven&#8217;t been granted yet! &#8211; after filling in a few pages of an application form online you upload a photo and a scan of your passport&#8217;s page with your photo on. Pay the free and you&#8217;re done. <\/p>\n<h3>Why is this so much better<\/h3>\n<p>Three things make this process so much better than before:<br \/>\n&#8211; Well simply that you can apply up to 120 days in advance and the visa doesn&#8217;t start counting down until you enter India. That&#8217;s a lot better than before.<br \/>\n&#8211; You don&#8217;t need to send your passport off, so no worrying it getting lost in the post.<br \/>\n&#8211; It&#8217;s all totally online.<\/p>\n<h3>All you need is&#8230;.<\/h3>\n<p>First go to the visa application page <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/indianvisaonline.gov.in\/evisa\/tvoa.html\">https:\/\/indianvisaonline.gov.in\/evisa\/tvoa.html<\/a> and take a read.<br \/>\nScan the page of your passport shows your photo. Save that to a PDF, noting the sizes mentioned on the help page on the visa site.<br \/>\nScan a photo of your head and shoulders against a plain background, no shadows must be present. Read the rules etc..<br \/>\nStart the application process, fill in name, passport details.<br \/>\nThen details about any previous visas, where you&#8217;re going now, where you&#8217;ve been before, that sort of thing.<br \/>\nYou&#8217;re asked for the name of a reference in India which will be tricky for most but just enter your first hotel&#8217;s details if you don&#8217;t have anyone you know in India.<br \/>\nGive the name, address and phone number of a reference in the UK.<br \/>\nUpload your photo (JPG) and passport page (PDF).<br \/>\nPay your money.<br \/>\nAnd relax.<\/p>\n<p>And wait for confirmation that everything is okay.<br \/>\n*crosses fingers*<\/p>\n<p><strong>***UPDATE***<\/strong><br \/>\nVisa has been granted.<br \/>\nIt took just 13 hours since I submitted my application.<br \/>\nWow.<br \/>\nThe best thing is that everything&#8217;s done, nothing to wait for in the post, just print off the form and attach a photo, then make sure I arrive in India between June 15th and October 17th.<\/p>\n<p><strong>***UPDATE 2**<\/strong><br \/>\nWithin 24 hours all three visas had been approved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today, I&#8217;ve been mainly editing photos, scanning pages of passports and applying for our tourist visas. It was a lot easier easier than the last times I&#8217;ve done it. Back in the day In 2009 it was possible to do most of the application process online but you still had to send your passport off, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/2017\/06\/15\/a-visa-bly-much-better-experience-indias-e-visa-application-process\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;A visa-bly much better experience: India&#8217;s e-visa application process&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[28],"class_list":["post-177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-booking","tag-visa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":185,"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177\/revisions\/185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/masala-dosa-diaries.winchcombe.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}