New Delhi : In an effort to provide medical benefits to the foreign tourists coming to India every year for traditional treatments, Government of India has started a new initiative. “Ayush Visa” is a special category of Visa that allows foreign nationals to avail the Traditional Indian medicine system in India. This new initiative started by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Ayush Visa will be a great help for the foreign nationals who are interested to take medical treatment including therapeutic care, wellness and especially Yoga during their stay in India.
With the introduction of this new special visa scheme for foreigners the medical tourism will also boost in India, Union Minister of Ayush, Sarbananda Sonowal said at its launch this month. It will also strengthen their endeavor of making Indian traditional medicine a worldwide phenomenon.
Every year hundreds of patients from neighboring countries come to India for medical treatments, organ transplants etc. for which they have to stay in India for a longer time. In the year 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced the need of this special visa system for foreign nationals under the Heal in India initiative. After which the Ministry of Health and family welfare and Ministry of Ayush jointly started worked on it to develop one stop Heal in India portal for foreigners. It is an initiative of the Indian Government aimed to promote medical tourism in the country.
Heal In India program of Indian Govt.
It is a global initiative of the Health Ministry which aims to promote India as a global leader in Health sector and encourage medical tourism in India. This program is based on the Indian Philosophy of Seva. The Heal in India has a digital portal that helps the international patients plan their medical journey in India. It also provides them with information of the nearest healthcare facilities during their stay in India.
According to the reports “ The Global Wellness economy” looking beyond COVID’ by the Global Wellness Institute, the Global wellness Economy will grow to $70 billion by 2025, with a tremendous growth in Medical value Travel. For this a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was recently signed with India Tourism Development Corporation (ITDC) and Ministry of Tourism (GOI).
As we all know that India has a rich history of traditional way of medical treatment. Ayurveda stands to be the most ancient, most widely accepted, practiced and flourished indigenous system of medicine. The other systems of traditional medicine are yoga, Unani, Siddha, Homeopathy and Naturopathy. Yoga which has its roots in India has also emerged as the most popular exercise form of treatment not only in India but worldwide. According to the International Yoga Federation around 300 million people practice yoga globally, with 36 million in US alone. Yoga tourism is also growing fast. We have certified yoga teachers in Indonesia, Thailand, Canada, UK, France, Germany and Europe. The practice of Yoga is a well established form of spiritual and physical exercise in Spain and Bali.
The Ayush Visa initiative of the government along with traditional way of treatment will also give a significant boost to India’s Medical Tourism system.
