Shillong, March 29: The wait time for visitor’s visa interview to United States witnessed 60 percent decrease in India, a senior official informed.
This was due to many steps taken by the US, including hiring more staff and building new diplomatic offices to handle these applications.
The aim of the State Department is to issue 1 million visas this year, which would be more than the pre-pandemic total, deputy assistant secretary of state for visa services Julie Stufft told.
“We have increased the number of officers going to India. We have set up arrangements,which is unprecedented, with other embassies in the world like Bangkok to take Indians who are seeking visas. We are opening a new consulate in Hyderabad… and we’re just focused on making sure that we can bring the wait time down in India,” she said.
“We have asked these missions to take Indians as if they were from their own host country. Especially in places like Bangkok where there is no visa required for Indians and it is a relatively short flight.
“As a result of all of these efforts, the visitor visa interview wait time has decreased by 60 per cent just in the last couple of months. This is a result of all the work that we’ve put into making sure that Indians who wish to travel to the US can do so.” Stufft said that currently, “visa production in India is 40 per cent higher than it was before the pandemic” and asserted that the State Department was working hard to bring down the wait time.
