Pakistan and India are set to liberalise their visa policy from next month which will include opening an extra counter in each country and issuing 1,000 visas to businessmen and tourists daily.
Apart form this, the new policy would put no restrictions on the number of cities a person can visit.
The principal understanding on visas between the two South Asian neighbours was reached during the foreign secretary-level talks in New Delhi last month.
A formal agreement was likely to be signed on January 13 when the foreign ministers of the two countries hold talks in Islamabad to review the third round of the composite dialogue process, the Daily Times quoted official sources as saying.
Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam had said visa liberalisation was part of a tourism agreement that would be inked by Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri and his Indian counterpart Pranab Mukherjee.
A senior interior ministry official told the newspaper that Pakistan and India had agreed to increase the number of visa counters each has from the existing two to three, and plan to issue over 1,000 visas daily to businessmen and tourists.
"Under the new policy, citizens and businessmen of both countries would get a seven-day open visa with no restrictions on visiting a particular city or place. They would be allowed to move anywhere," the official said.
According to the proposed agreement, tourists would also be offered a 15-day visa if they visit in the form of delegations or groups.
"Earlier, Indian and Pakistani tourists were not given visas in groups," the official said.
India is to open a new visa counter in Lahore while Pakistan will set up another visa counter in Hyderabad.
Currently, the two countries are issuing visas only from Mumbai, New Delhi, Karachi and Islamabad.
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