American Consulates gear up to meet increasing demand for visa

Kolkata, Nov 02 (UNI) To cope with the increasing demand for visas, American Embassy and Consulates across the country would issue visas to more people within the shortest possible time besides reducing their waiting period.

Announcing the details of such initiative in the Eastern Region, U S Consul General in Kolkata Henry V Jardine and the new Consular Officer Rebecca Dodds here today said due to a growth in demand for visit to the USA from a large cross section of people, including those from the business community and students, they had decided to appoint a number of trained Visa officers in the city's American consulate.

" In addition to two permanent consular officers for issuing visas, the American consulate here will soon have the third permanent officer," Mr Jardine said adding that two more consular offers from the US embassy in Paris and Hong Kong had also been deputed here for the time being to meet the increasing demand.

"Moreover, by 2011 we plan to appoint at least six consular officers exclusively to deal with the issuance of visas from Kolkata office", the US Consul General said but refused to make any guess work on the probable size of visa applicants from the region in the coming years.

Elaborating other details of the new facility since the number of of business visitors to the USA from West Bengal and other Eastern and North Eastern states had gone up by over 54 per cent during the past couple of years, Ms Dodds said business appointments were also being expedited through the newly installed Business Express Programme(BEP) under which necessary documents could be released within 24 hours instead of more than a week.

Similarly, issuance of student and tourist visas could now also be made available within 48 hours, Ms Dodd informed.

Describing the initiative as the true reflection of increasingly closed bilateral relations between the two largest democracies of the world, the US Consul General said adding more friendly steps might also be taken in near futue to promote intense socio-cultural and economic exchanges between India and the USA.

To a query Mr Jardine, however, made it clear that no relaxation would be made in terms of security while issuing visas to Indian citizens.

Last year a toal of 300,000 non-immigrant visas were issued in India which was probably the second highest in number after Mexico, Mr Jardine informed adding that of them about eight per cent, numbering about 42,000, were issued by the Kolkata Consulate.

" This year we expect a much higher number of people applying for visiting the USA," he said.

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