Authorities in the United States are continuously working in order to reduce visa wait times for citizens of India.
Among the measures recently introduced is also moving workers from other departments around the world to visa offices in India, VisaGuide.World reports.
“Our incredible team of consular officers have temporarily left their regular duties around the world, from the State Department in DC to the US Consulate Naha, to help out with visa operations in Mumbai,” the United States Consulate in Mumbai said.
In the past few months, US authorities have made several attempts to accelerate the process of granting visas to nationals of India.
Last month, US officials introduced new rules for Indians in order to shorten the visa waiting period. Among the new measures was arranging special interviews for first-time applicants and also further expanding the strength of consular workers, to minimize delays in processing visas.
The abolishment of COVID-19 restrictions imposed to contain the further spread of the virus led a large number of Indian nationals to apply for US visas.
Deputy assistant secretary for consular affairs, Julie Stuff, told the Economic Times India that reducing the wait time was her number one priority.
“It’s the first thing I do when I wake up. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime situation. The visa operations in India are very different from any other country because of the range of visas and the massive demand,” she pointed out.
The report notes that the US Embassy in India processed more than one lakh requests in the first month of this year alone, accounting for the highest total in a single month as well as the highest number recorded in any other month since July 2019. Last year, authorities in the United States issued a total of 125,000 student visas, marking the most significant increase.
During the meeting held in December last year by the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, as well as Pacific Islanders there were several steps introduced in order to reduce the increasing delay in visa appointment times in India as well as other countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
It was also recommended to the US State Department to hire new Full-time officers/consular or temporary staff or other similar measures in order to clear the backlog at the Embassies in Asia which have registered wait times of more than 400 days and also minimize the wait time to 2-4 weeks.
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