Infotech: US Visa backlog reduced

Bangalore: The US visa scene looks brighter with a drastic drop in the waiting period which used to be six months in some cases. A backlog of about 137,000 applications were cleared during a comprehensive exercise undertaken by the US embassy which flew in senior officials and technology experts from different countries to India to fix the issue. Minister-conselor for consular affairs Peter G Kaestner says the visa need for India has been growing at 20% annually.

“Apart from IT professionals, professors, doctors and other business visitors, there has been a huge increase in the number of families/ parents visiting their relatives/ children in the US and leisure seekers/ tourists. India has also increased the number of flight to the US,” he said. The embassy attributed the backlog to shortage of staff. It has inducted 25 additional staff and has over 300 people across four offices. It will invest $125 million to build infrastructure and scale up the peoplefront in India. $100 m will be allocated for setting up a large visa processing infrastructure in Mumbai.

The Andhra Pradesh government has given Piagh Palace to the embassy to set up its Hyderabad office. The facility is under renovation at an investment of $8 m which will be ready in a year. Kaestner said, “We considered Bangalore (to establish a consulate) but realised it has lot of proximity to Chennai.”

The US embassy is conducting a survey to check costs of running its consulate offices across the globe, including in India.