Indian High Commissioner outlines steps to deal with visa delays for British tourists

Vikram Doraiswami, High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom

Vikram Doraiswami, High Commissioner of India to the United Kingdom, has outlined the steps being taken to address the issue of long delays in visa appointments for British tourists travelling to India.

The long wait time for Indian visas threatens to derail holiday plans for hundreds of Britons—long used to quick visa approvals—booked to fly to India in the coming weeks.

In a video message posted on Twitter, Doraiswami said, “First and foremost, we understand that there has been difficulty in getting these appointments. We are doing our best to ameliorate the situation.”

“We are ensuring that more bookings are released on our online booking service and ensuring that these appointment modules are not misused, which has been the case unfortunately until very recently,” he said, referring to the recent crackdown on the practice of visas bought by travel agents being processed in batches.

The Indian High Commission in the UK had reportedly long turned a blind eye towards this practice, but has now begun enforcing a rule that requires British citizens attend visa centres in-person, which has led to the long delays in getting visa appointments.

To resolve the problem, the Indian High Commission in the UK is also ramping up capacity besides adding more appointment slots, said Doraiswami. To that end, new visa centres will be opened within the month and capacity to handle applications at existing centres will also be increased.

“Second, we are ramping up capacity in partnership with our service provider, VFS,” said Doraiswami, adding that a new visa centre would come up in Glasgow by early next week, and another one in central London by the end of the month.

Moreover, efforts are underway to increase capacity at existing centres – including to handle and receive applications on Saturday and on afternoons on weekdays.

“The essence of this effort is to ensure that we go up to about 40,000 visa applications per month, which is a doubling of our capacity,” he said.

Team @HCI_London recognizes the challenges and is committed to improving our delivery of visa services. Here’s a message by High Commissioner @VDoraiswami on what's being done in this regard. @MEAIndia @IndianDiplomacy @CPVIndia @sujitjoyghosh pic.twitter.com/x0zXLF7bKD

— India in the UK (@HCI_London) October 12, 2022

Last week, the High Commission had issued a statement to say that it is investigating reports of unauthorised agents illegally charging fees to get visas processed for travellers to India.

“It has come to our notice that unauthorised agents and individuals are illegally charging fees and collecting India visa applications for submission at VFS Centres, misleading applicants and misrepresenting the services that they can legally provide,” the statement said, reiterating that individual visa applicants have always been expected to apply in-person at the mission's outsourced VFS Global centres in London and there had been no sudden change in the rule.

The UK is currently not included in the over 150 countries that can access the online tourist e-visa option when travelling to India, which has also caused considerable strain for tourists who are facing long waits at the outsourced VFS centres for their applications to be processed.

(With inputs from PTI)