7th meeting of SAARC Immigration Authorities held in Islamabad

The seventh meeting of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Immigration Authorities was held on 2 August 2016 in Islamabad, Pakistan.
•    Usman A. Bajwa, Pakistan’s Director General Immigration and Passports, chaired the meeting.
•    The meeting aimed at formulating recommendations to be presented in the meetings of Home Secretaries and Interior Ministers meetings.
•    It reviewed different areas to maximize the potential of visa exemption scheme launched among the member countries in 1992.
•    It also planned on development of security software for SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme (SVES) and immigration matters.
•    SVES will help in transforming the existing manual system of the scheme into an online visa application system.
•    It will have a central database that will provide all member states with real-time and secure information.
•    The SAARC Visa Exemption Scheme was launched in 1992.
•    As directed by the Summit, the Council of Ministers regularly kept under review the list of entitled categories.
•    The Visa Stickers are issued by the respective Member States to the entitled categories of that particular country.  
•    The validity of the Visa Sticker is generally for one year.  
•    The implementation is reviewed regularly by the Immigration Authorities of SAARC Member States.