Govt plans to ease rules to increase foreign tourist arrival in Arunachal Pradesh

The centre is making moves to turn the remote areas in Arunachal Pradesh into tourist hotspots. It will ease entry rules for travellers under the ‘protected area permit regime.’ Arunachal Pradesh will be the first beneficiary of these relaxed norms, with Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir, and Sikkim likely to follow the move.
Read More: Arunachal Pradesh—the last frontier

The centre has decided after a meeting of the inter-ministerial committee on tourism sector that tourists visiting Arunachal Pradesh will be now able to acquire inner-line and protected area permits for a five-year period instead of the two-year permits allowed earlier.
As per the latest reports, the Union Ministry of Tourism is looking for avenues that will help boost the footfall of tourists in areas like Ziro, Tawang Valley and Bomdila in Arunachal Pradesh. It is expected that other picturesque areas of the state, around the state borders, might become accessible to travellers once the Union Home Ministry looks into the concerns regarding their movement in sensitive areas.

Tourism Minister KJ Alphons welcoming MHA’s move to ease rules said, “We wrote to MHA two years ago asking for easier norms to allow more tourists to visit Arunachal Pradesh. Easing these norms will facilitate tourism and allow more people to be able to see far flung places.”


The Home Ministry will soon seek details from all the border states that have concerns in some of their sensitive areas. The ministry will also ask the states regarding alternative mechanisms, which they will likely implement, to keep a record of international tourists visiting those areas.

Regarding this, Junior Home Minister Kiren Rijiju said, “The states will be asked how they plan to register foreigners who enter the state to access these border areas… whether it will be an online process? Also, how the movement of foreign citizens will be tracked and their exit from the state recorded.”

As soon as all these concerns get covered, the centre might ease rules to boost tourism in those border states that have the potential to contribute in tourism growth.