India has asked Russia to ease its 'cumbersome and outdated' visa procedures to facilitate travel for businessmen as part of measures to enhance bilateral trade and investment ties.
"Russian procedures with regards to visas are very cumbersome and outdated. We are trying to impress on them (Russian authorities) that we must find a way to ease business travel," India's Ambassador Kanwal Sibal said in an interview to Russia Profile magazine.
Sibal, a former foreign secretary, said while Russia wanted visa-free travel with the European Union, India was only looking for easier procedures.
He allayed apprehensions a liberal visa regime could be an immigration problem, saying
there were very few Indians wanting to migrate to Russia and there was no common border.
The scope of illegal immigration was very small, he added. Sibal noted the EU and the US had worked out systems where they were generally cautious about issuing visas, but were ready to issue visas to genuine Indian businessmen.
"We want to create similar mechanism with Russia, but Russia remains unyielding. But I do not think it's discriminatory," he said. Sibal said India wanted an agreement with Russia for all kinds of travel, including for tourists.
"Indian tourists are travelling in very large numbers, and the outflow of Indian tourists exceeds the inflow of foreign tourists coming to India," he added.