The American Embassy has taken a special initiative for this. In order to reduce the waiting period of visa applicants, a special series of interviews has been started on Saturdays. Along with this, dozens of temporary employees were also deployed.
Those applying for a US visa in India will not have to wait any longer. The American Embassy has taken a special initiative for this. In order to reduce the waiting period of visa applicants, a special series of interviews has been started on Saturdays. Along with this, dozens of temporary employees were also deployed. Saturday-interviews were held at the US Embassy in New Delhi as well as at the Consulates in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad. This was for visa applicants who require an in-person visa interview. In a statement issued in this regard, the US Embassy said that in the coming months, the mission will continue to open additional slots for appointments on select Saturdays.
Dozens of officers will come
The US State Department has already implemented remote processing by waiving the interview for applicants with previous US visas. It will not be necessary for such people to appear for the in-person interview. It has been said in the statement that between January and March 2023, dozens of consular officers from Washington and other embassies will come to India. These people will increase the processing capacity. At the same time, the US State Department is also increasing the number of consular officers in embassies and consulates in India. In addition, the US mission has issued more than 250,000 additional B1 and B2 visa appointments. To deal with the additional appointments, the Consulate in Mumbai has extended its working hours on weekdays. The statement also said that by summer the US mission will be adequately staffed. After this, processing of visas before Kovid-19 will be taken care of.
Started with student visa
America started with student visa in the matter of backlog clearance. After issuing more than 82 thousand student visas in the year 2022, it has started focusing on L and H category non-immigrant visas. This includes H-1B visas, B-1 business visas, B-2 tourism visas, and visas for crew of shipping and airlines companies. The US expects visas from India in all categories to increase by 100,000 a month in 2023, or 1.2 million annually. With this, India will become the second largest country after China in terms of visa operations for the US. According to the statement, due to the epidemic, there has been a decrease in the visa processing capacity of the US State Department. The US mission in India will handle more than 80,000 non-immigrant visas in 2022 after the travel ban is lifted. This also includes student and employee visas.
