India’s Ministry of Tourism has set up an information helpline in Arabic to help tourists from Arabic-speaking countries and to offer them assistance while travelling within India, a report said.

Minister for Tourism and Culture, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat announced this move in the lower House of India’s Parliament, the Lok Sabha on August 6, Emirates News Agency, WAM, said.

The toll-free helpline 1800111363 will also “provide support and designated services for tourists and other visitors in terms of information relating to travel in India”, the minister said.

Such information and help will also be provided on short code 1363 in 12 foreign (non-Indian) languages, including Arabic. Among Indian languages, assistance will be available in Hindi. English, which is widely used in India, is among the foreign languages in which information is available.

Short codes are numbers shorter than telephone numbers for addressing multimedia messages (MMS) and short messages (SMS) in the systems of mobile network operators.

“With efforts by the Ministry of Tourism, 15 state governments and union territory administrations have deployed special tourist police to help tourists,” Shekhawat said.