No Requirement To Fill Departure Cards For Indians Flying Abroad

Indians flying abroad will not be required to fill departure cards from Saturday. However, those going out of the country via rail, seaport and land immigration checkposts will have to fill the embarkation card. At present, those going abroad need to fill in details such as name, date of birth, passport number, address in India, flight number and date of boarding in the departure card.

An order issued by the home ministry said, "It has been decided to discontinue the practice of filling up of departure card by Indians at all international airports with effect from 1 July , 2017. The same information (about passengers) is available in the system from other sources."

The need for Indians to fill such cards on their arrival in India has already been done away with. The decision will help reduce the time required to complete immigration-related formalities by passengers and also enable airports and authorities concerned to cater to a larger number of people. Officials said the move would save atleast 5-10 minutes of passengers' time.

"Whenever I travelled abroad, apart from standing in the queue for the boarding pass, security checks and boarding area, there was this immigration departure card filling exercise. While everything is already online and we were handing over our passports to the immigration officers at the counter, why was this paper exercise being done for so many years. It's such a relief that it has been done away with," said Vibhor, who travels abroad frequently for work.

The customs department had last year done away with the need for Indian passengers to fill up a declaration form while coming to India if they were not carrying dutiable goods.

Those carrying prohibited and dutiable goods are required to fill up an 'Indian Customs Declaration Form', earlier mandatory for all passengers entering the country.

Comments Post Comment

Leave a Comment

Submit