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Hundreds of United Kingdom (UK) citizens who were travelling to India have been forced to either cancel or postpone their visit. Reason? Their agents who had booked on their behalf received notices that they can no longer apply for the tourist visas for the applicants, a move that may largely impact the tourism industry in India. The applicants now have to be physically present at the UK visa centres. However, since there were no appointments before their flights, they had to either cancel or postpone their trips.
There lately have been delays in granting visas to Indians. Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs, Don Heflin, explained the long waiting time, referring to the low number of staff at the visa centres.
In a live session, Don Heflin said, “I know some of you have some real concerns about wait times. I’m going to be honest with you. There’s a long wait time. The good news is our recovery from Covid and post the pandemic, the staffing problem is being handled. At the height of Covid and for a while after, we only had about 50 per cent [staff] in the visa consulates.”
Vikram Doraiswami, High Commissioner for India in the United Kingdom, has said that steps are being taken to improve the situation. In a video message, Vikram Doraiswami said the high commission was doing its best to ameliorate the situation.
The high commissioner said that more visa slots would be opened. By the end of October, two new visa centres – Glasgow and central London – would be established so that 40,000 visa applications could be handled every month.
According to a report, getting an appointment at a visa processing centre would be difficult for a British citizen as India’s 9 visa centres from “Birmingham to Manchester and from central London to Edinburgh” are completely booked for more than a month.
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