The GoI’s initiative to encourage growth of medical value travel to India, M Visa - Medical Visa was introduced in 2005, but in the last five years few overseas patients have chosen to apply for Medical Visas as the scheme has inherent flaws that actually hassle the foreign patients who avail of it. Majority of foreigners coming to India for medical treatments have been applying for a Tourist Visa and not opting for M Visa, because Medical Visa norms make it mandatory for them to register with FRRO office within 14 days of the arrival in India.
The patients who come on M Visa have to seek the Indian hospital's help to go FRRO office and comply with the procedures and this puts strain on the hospital's resources. Therefore the hospitals have been often advising the potential patients not to apply for M Visa and opt for Tourist Visa only. But this has defeated the purpose and good intentions with which GoI introduced the Medical Visa scheme.
As per the release, the volume of foreign patient arrivals at Indian hospitals is growing at a healthy pace of over 40 per cent every year and Medical Tourism is indeed the next billion dollar opportunity after IT outsourcing for India to benefit from its fast expanding private healthcare infrastructure. Indian doctors and professionals are world renowned for their skills and the country has abundance of all the inputs like young manpower, local high quality manufacturing base for pharmaceuticals, technology hardware and software that makes the Indian costs for high end surgical procedures attractive.
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