U.S. AND INDIA RELATIONS ON VISA

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• Promising to bring its visa staff across the U.S. Embassy and five consulates in India back up to full strength in the next few months, the U.S. on Sunday said it was launching a “surge” in staffing and a number of other measures to increase visa processing capacity across the country.
• The statement came even as U.S. missions in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Hyderabad clock up processing times of up to two years for a normal visitor visa for tourism or business (B1/B2). The embassy also said January 21 was the first of several Saturdays when visa offices would remain open across India.

Going extra mile

• “Our consular teams across India are putting in the extra hours to meet the needs of international travellers and bring down wait times,” said Mumbai Consular Chief John Ballard.
• “This is part of a mission-wide effort to find innovative solutions to facilitate travel to the United States,” he added.
• The embassy is also extending its hours of operation, expanding conditions to offer those who have previously been given visa “interview waivers” or process them through “remote interviews”, and offering slots in other countries for Indians as third country nationals.
• In addition, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Julie Stufft had revealed last November that applications from India were being adjudicated by U.S. consular officers in other countries including China, where there is not as much pressure on the visa officers.
• “By this summer, the U.S. mission in India will be at full staffing, and we expect to be processing visas at levels from prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the U.S. Embassy statement said.
• According to the U.S. Embassy, the India mission released more than 2,50,000 additional B1/B2 appointments and adjudicated more than 8,00,000 non-immigrant visas in 2022.
• Despite all the measures, the U.S. State department estimates that the wait time for a visitor’s visa interview in Delhi and the five Indian consulates is between 500-600 days, in contrast to European capitals where it is about 20 days, or Beijing where it is 34 days, or in south Asia, where an interview takes about 296 days in Islamabad and 394 days in Dhaka.

SOURCE: THE HINDU, THE ECONOMIC TIMES, PIB