‘No UK visa bond for tourists from India’
New Delhi : Tourists and students from India planning to visit the UK will not be asked to deposit Rs 2.7 lakh bond for entering UK. UK deputy high commissioner Peter Beckingham said that the UK has not passed any such legislation and that the issue was “misinterpreted” and “misreported”.
“We are not planning to charge bonds from Indian tourists, students or businessmen in general. The bond is only for high risk individuals, who may stay illegally in UK even after their visa expires. It is only for few people,” Times of India quoted Beckingham as saying.
When asked how Britain would identify high-risk individuals, Beckingham said that they have ways of identifying such persons. “People who don’t have jobs or those with criminal records are seen as high risk individuals,” he said.
Beckingham said that the number of visitors from India to UK has gone up steadily over last few years.“We have over four lakh visitors from India every year and now even the number of Indian students in UK has gone up,” he said.
Beckingham added that his government is clamping down on the number of immigrants due to unemployment issues back home.
The UK had recently announced a scheme under which most visitors from six high-risk Afro-Asian countries, including India, Pakistan and Nigeria, would have to furnish a Rs 2.7 lakh bond for a six-month visit visa, which would be forfeited if they overstay in Britain. The proposal had been blasted by critics from both India and UK, terming it as “discriminatory.” Source: Times of India
