India has announced plans to issue visa on arrival and electronic travel authorization (ETA) for citizens of all countries barring eight "prior reference'' countries including Pakistan, Iran, Sri Lanka and China.

ETA will allow foreign travellers to apply for a visa from home and receive an online confirmation in five working days, said a Times of India report.

The visa on arrival facility will be extended to tourists from 180 countries. It will take 5-6 months to put the infrastructure in place, Planning Minister Rajiv Shukla was quoted a s saying.

The visa-on-arrival and ETA will be implemented initially at nine airports including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Cochin, Hyderabad, Goa and Trivandrum.  

India currently offers visa-on-arrival to tourists from 11 countries only.

The new move is aimed at boosting the tourism sector. A separate website would be set up for extending the facility to foreigners intending to visit India as tourists.