If you are the ordinary passport holders in India, your passport has now been authorized with the power and right to take you to 16 countries without a visa whereas you can also land in 43 other countries with the facility of getting the visa on arrival. 

The announcement concerning the question raised with this regard was made by the Central government on Tuesday. In a written reply to a question in Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for External Affairs Muraleedharan said that sixteen countries, from India's neighbors to beyond the continents provide visa-free entry to the Indian passport holders. 

These sixteen countries where Indians can enjoy the travel without a visa are Barbados, Bhutan, Dominica, Grenada, Haiti, Hong Kong SAR, the Maldives, Mauritius, Montserrat, Nepal, Niue Island, Saint Vincent and Grenadines, Samoa, Senegal, Serbia, and Trinidad and Tobago. Apart from these, 43 other countries would provide a visa-on-arrival facility to Indian ordinary passport holders.

Countries like Iran, Indonesia, and Myanmar are among the pool of 43 nations where Indians can enjoy the 'visa-on-arrival' facility through the ordinary passports whereas Sri Lanka, New Zealand, and Malaysia are among the other 36 countries which provide e-visa facility to Indian ordinary passport holders, the minister of state shared at the Parliament. 

Muraleedharan further stated that the government has been making efforts to increase the number of countries that provide visa-free travel, visa-on-arrival facility, and e-visa facility to further ease the corridors of international travel for Indians. 

He added that while the issuance of the visa and visa-related process are vested with the decision of the respective country, the government is trying to liberalize the visa policy for the Indian nationals through taking up the matter regularly in bilateral meetings and forums with foreign countries. 

According to the Henly Passport Index, which periodically analyzes the world's most travel-friendly passports, Japan tops the world as it offers the most-travel friendly passports than any other country. The index says as of the current year, the Japanese passport has been offering visa-free or visa-on-arrival access to 191 destinations around the world. 

Following Japan, the Singaporean passport holds second place with offering such friendly travel to 190 countries, followed by South Korea with 189, Germany with 189, Italy with 188, and Finland with 188 countries. As per the Index, India stands at 85th rank at the global stage as it had been offering visa-free, visa-on-arrival, and e-visa facility to 58 countries, and now India has increased the number of countries in the three categories.