Originally Posted by
jpatokal
At the risk of stating the obvious... why not use a tourist visa? They're easily obtained, allow multiple entries and are valid 6 months, and you can get them issued back to back without anybody blinking an eye. Yes, you're not allowed to "work" on a tourist visa... but if you're getting paid at home by the home office, not by an Indian company in India, then you aren't really working in India now are you?
As a data point, I spent over a year (off and on) working... err... attending a project in India on an unholy mix of tourist and business visas, traveling back and forth every month or so, and Immigration never even batted an eyelid.
Whenever I have to visit the offices of one of the state companies as part of my work, as a foreigner I need to show my passport and visa to gain entry. I suspect that if I only had a tourist visa it might cause problems...
We have several people in our office here with the same problem as the OP - employed by the UK office but working on Indian projects in the India office for x weeks / months. Long term expats (like me) are on Employment visas but the short term guys are on Business visas.
For employment visas we have to initially apply in our country of residence (IIRC), but they can be extended at the FRO. We needed a letter from the Indian company stating that we were employed by the UK co etc and wouldn't cost the GOI anything while we were here, plus a copy of our contract.
Good luck!