Any experience of using e-Visa for 'Casual Business'?
 

Hello, for my previous trips to India I've obtained a 2 year business visa. For my next trip I'd like to try to use an e-Visa. As far as I can tell these examples* are acceptable reasons to enter on an e-Visa for 'casual business' purposes:

• Work related to projects of national importance, including those undertaken by public sector undertakings, and conducting business tours of foreigners or business relating to it;
• Establishing an industrial/business venture, or exploring possibilities to set up an industrial/business venture in India;
• Purchasing/selling industrial products or commercial products or consumer durables in India;
• Technical meetings/discussions, attending Board meetings, and conducting general meetings for providing business services support;
• Recruiting manpower;
• Consultations regarding exhibitions, and participating in exhibitions, trade fairs, business fairs;
• Experts/specialists visiting for short durations in connection with an ongoing project with the objective of monitoring the progress of the work, conducting meetings with Indian customers and/or providing some high level technical guidance;
• Pre-sales or post-sales activity not amounting to actual execution of any contract or project;
• Trainees of multinational companies/corporate houses coming for in-house training in the regional hubs of concerned companies located in India; or
• AIESEC student internships on project based work in companies/industries.

I have highlighted the categories where I mostly fit in bold.

We have ongoing contracts with developers in India and I am going out to hold meetings and discuss our ongoing work and discuss new work with them.

Does anyone have any experience doing something similar and is the general consensus that I should be able to use an e-Visa or not?

Thanks in advance.

*http://blog.pro-linkglobal.com/immig...ess-activities

i don't think you will have a problem using an e-visa....

I'm going to give it a go (partly because I don't have time to apply for a proper visa anyway anymore!)

I'm curious how it went for the OP. Did you have any issues entering India on the e-Visa? I plan on visiting India for technical meetings soon, and I'm hoping to avoid going through the process for a full visa.

Hello, OP here. It worked absolutely fine. No problems at all. Let me know if you have any other questions before your trip and I'll be happy to try to help.

I'd get the business visa for your next trip. While not settled using an e-visa can cause a problem.

I'll be using the e-visa in future. It was painless, less hassle to arrange and far less expensive than the business visa. Unless something material changes (or has changed that I'm not aware of).

Could you please elaborate what kinds of problems you anticipate being caused by using an e-visa for "casual business"? I know several of my colleagues at work (US and EU citizens, if it matters) who have traveled to India to visit our offices there, to attend various meetings, to strike business contracts, carry out interviews for local jobs, and so on, on e-visas. And they were quite up front about it if asked as to the purpose of their visit at immigration. My understanding is that the e-visa is absolutely intended for this kind of use for those who don't need to travel frequently to India. In fact the only limitation compared to a normal business visa with a sticker in the passport seems to be that one is restricted to two visits in a calendar year.

Small business trips for exactly the topics @bandicoot describes are allowed under the ETA.

As everything in India it's not settled. It is fine until it isn't. If your company or the one you do business with are of interest to authorities they may well review your visa from a copy your hotel makes. In those cases a proper business visa is a must in my view.