The e-Arrival Card retired the paper disembarkation slip, a real step forward. Today it sits on its own portal, separate from the visa, the e-gates and customs. Pravesh brings every step into one clean app, clears travellers at the gate by passport in about 30 seconds, and does it with a privacy architecture Singapore does not have.
Directional estimates for discussion, drawn from public reporting on Indian airport traffic, FTI-TTP performance and traveller accounts.
Before the hotel, the food or the deal, every traveller meets the country at immigration. If India wants to be known for modernity, digitisation and ease of doing business, this is where that reputation begins. India has already digitised the arrival card. It can now offer the most modern arrival in the world.
For every tourist, business visitor, OCI cardholder and foreign resident, arrival is India's first impression, which makes it part of how India is seen abroad. The same platform also serves foreigners living in India, from registration to visa extensions, and the goods declared at customs. A privacy-first border platform built on Indian digital public infrastructure is something India could offer other countries, as it has with UPI.
A German tourist, or an OCI cardholder flying home, still meets India as several separate systems, each built for its own job. Singapore brought these together in one app. India already has the ingredients to do the same.
Apply for an e-Visa on one portal, with its own login and payment flow.
File the e-Arrival Card within 72 hours on the Su-Swagatam portal or app, which is separate from the visa and the e-gates.
Land, then queue at a manual counter. The FTI-TTP e-gates currently serve citizens and OCI cardholders, with a separate enrolment.
Handle a separate customs declaration. DigiYatra is a separate app, focused on domestic boarding.
Add your passport once. Tap the chip, scan the photo page, or type it in. Visa, arrival card and customs all fill from a single profile. Families of up to 10 in one filing.
Pre-vetting runs before wheels-up using airline advance passenger data, so risk screening happens in the air, not in the hall.
Walk to an e-gate. Your passport is the key: the gate reads the chip or scans the page, matches your face, and finds your cleared record. No phone to hand around. The QR is there as a backup.
Green-channel customs on the same record. Officers handle the exceptions, not everyone.
Singapore's MyICA Mobile and SG Arrival Card set the global bar: passport-scan autofill, group submissions, and QR clearance through e-gates with no prior face enrolment. Pravesh matches every feature, then goes past it on the dimension governments care about most, which is who holds the data.
| Capability | Singapore (MyICA) | India today | Pravesh |
|---|---|---|---|
| Digital arrival card | Yes, 72-hour window | Yes, separate portal | Yes, files once per trip |
| Passport-scan autofill | Yes | Partial | Chip, photo page or manual |
| Group or family filing | Up to 10 | Partial | Up to 10, saved profiles |
| E-gates for foreign visitors | Yes, no enrolment | Manual counters only | Yes, passport plus face |
| Visa, arrival and customs in one app | Visa is separate | Four separate systems | One profile, one record |
| Traveller data minimisation | Central retention | Central retention | Zero-knowledge, on-device |
| One rail for residents and citizens too | Everyone files | Separate by traveller class | Every traveller class |
Swipe sideways to compare all three
Sources: ICA Singapore public documentation, Bureau of Immigration e-Arrival Card advisories, Su-Swagatam portal information, and FTI-TTP programme documentation. Reflects June 2026 status.
Designed around how people actually travel: set up your profile and family once, add a trip in seconds, then walk through the gate with your passport. Clean, bilingual and ready for 22 languages. The home screen above shows the full service surface; these four screens show the core loop.
Type the flight number and everything else fills itself. Declarations are part of the same flow, not another portal.
The current trip sits on top with its status. Past trips stay filed, so the next arrival reuses everything.
Flight, forms, customs and the backup QR in one place. Nothing to print, nothing to re-enter at a counter.
Your passport and family live in the profile. Add anyone to a trip with one tap, and at the gate each person clears with their own passport.
Pravesh's differentiator is a zero-knowledge verification layer. The system confirms the facts that matter, that a passport is genuine, that a visa is valid, that a face matches a chip, while keeping sensitive personal data off central servers. This is what makes it safer than Singapore's model, and what makes it defensible under the DPDP Act 2023.
The passport is verified on the traveller's phone using the issuing country's public keys, the same ICAO trust chain e-gates already use, simply moved to the edge. It works with the chip, or with a photo-page scan for passports that have none.
The app sends immigration a signed proof: valid passport, valid visa, admissible, face matches the document. Raw biometrics and chip data never leave the device.
Built on India's own digital public infrastructure, with DigiLocker for residents and Aadhaar kept optional, hosted on NIC's sovereign cloud. The state owns the data and the rails. Pravesh provides the software.
Customs sees declarations, not travel history. Health sees declarations, not passport numbers. Each agency gets exactly the fields it is entitled to, enforced in cryptography, not in a policy document.
The model is deliberately simple. NIC keeps running the servers on India's own sovereign cloud, so there is no new hosting bill. Pravesh provides the software, the zero-knowledge engine and the upkeep, for a fraction of what four separate services cost today.
Because NIC carries the infrastructure, our cost base stays light and the price to the state stays low. We are paid for the software and the IP, not for servers.
About ₹5 crore a year (roughly $600k), as a flat annual fee or close to ₹1 per traveller. Structure is flexible. The point is a fraction of today's multi-vendor spend.
Pravesh builds and owns the cryptographic proof engine at the core of the platform. That IP is the moat and is licensed to the state, not given away.
Travel-service companies (eSIM, lounges, transport, insurance, hotels) pay to be placed in the app's non-government services area. Pravesh earns the placement fee. The government counters stay clean.
The agreement preserves our right to license the same technology to other governments, the way UPI is being exported. India's scale becomes the proof point, not a constraint.
Illustrative figures for discussion, to be re-based on Bureau of Immigration counter-time and staffing data during a discovery phase. The state pays a fraction of current spend and saves multiples of it.
Designed to ride infrastructure that already exists: FTI-TTP e-gate hardware, the e-Arrival Card legal mandate, and India's identity rails. Nothing here needs a new law, only an integration mandate.
Bureau of Immigration data access, a counter-time baseline study, and a security review with NIC, MeitY and CERT-In. Pilot airport selected.
Delhi T3 or Goa. Unified filing plus passport and QR clearance at existing FTI-TTP gates, opened to e-Visa tourists. Target: a quarter of arrivals automated.
Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Amritsar. Family filing, customs green channel, and the first regional languages.
All 21 FTI-TTP airports, then seaports and land crossings. Departure cards, visa extensions and long-stay foreigner registration. Sovereign export begins.
Pravesh is an independent concept proposal seeking a conversation with the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Bureau of Immigration and NIC. The mock-ups and figures on this page are illustrative.
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