The Indian government has launched a new scheme aimed at making it easier for tourists to stay connected when they visit the country.

Recently unveiled by India’s Tourism & Culture Minister, the initiative will see all international visitors issued with pre-loaded SIM cards. The programme is applicable to those travellers arriving in India on e-tourist visas.

The SIM cards will be made available by Bharat Sanchar Nigam (BSNL), initially at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport Terminal 3. In future it will be progressively rolled out to the other 15 Indian airports where e-tourist visas are issued.

Dr Sharma said that “this unique initiative will facilitate the foreign tourists in communicating with their acquaintances immediately after their arrival in India”.

SIM cards will be pre-loaded with a value of INR50 (75 US cents) of talk time and 50 MB of data. They will be activated immediately after being issued to the visitor.