The perfect move to help first-time visa applicants! In an effort to shorten the waiting period for them, the U.S. Mission in India successfully launched special Saturday interview days as a series on January 21.
With the purpose of helping applicants who require in-person visa interviews, the US Embassy in New Delhi and the Consulates in Hyderabad, Chennai, Mumbai, and Kolkata started consular operations. The Mission is planning to add more slots for appointments to conduct on selected Saturdays in the upcoming months.
These planning additional interview days are simply one part of a comprehensive initiative to address the pandemic-related backlog in visa processing:
For applicants with prior U.S. visas, the Department of State has established remote processing of interview waiver cases.
To promote more processing capacity, many officers from the temporary consulate, from other embassies and Washington will reach India between January and March 2023.
The number of consular officials permanently posted to the consulates and embassies is also enlarging under the direction of the Department of State.
2,50,000+ extra B1/B2 appointments have already been released by the American mission in India.
The Mumbai Consulate General increased its weekday working hours to facilitate more appointments.
This summer's expectations are for the U.S. Mission in India to fully staff and process visas at levels that were seen before the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic highly affected and lowered the visa processing capacity of the Department. Also, several consulates and embassies could occasionally only provide emergency services.
The U.S. Mission to India has made it a priority to enable lawful travel since travel restrictions have been eased, and in 2022 it will have approved over 800,000 nonimmigrant visas, including a record number of student and job visas. Interview wait times in India are at pre-pandemic levels or below for every other type of visa. One of the largest visa operations in the world, the Consulate General of Mumbai adjudicates the majority of visa applications in India.
John Ballard, the Mumbai Consular Chief John Ballard said that "our consular teams across India are putting in the extra hours to meet the needs of international travelers and bring down wait times." This is part of a Mission wide effort to find innovative solutions to facilitate travel to the United States." For all hassle free visa services contact houseoftours.com.