India, Nov. 11 -- The Centre has reduced the number of main Indian visa categories from 13 to nine and sub-categories from 49 to 23, aimed at simplifying the country's visa regime, the ministry of home affairs said in a statement on Wednesday.

In a separate exercise, the Union home ministry is also moving to simplify visa application forms, reducing the number of fields by 65-70% across all 23 visa sub-categories. The home ministry said that this rationalisation was being undertaken to boost foreign tourist arrivals, enhance medical value travel and foreign student arrivals.

Additionally the changes will also reduce overlap between visa categories and make framework easier to navigate for visitors, patients, students, researchers, inves...