Religion no ground to reject US visa: consul general

Lucknow, Sep 6 (UNI) The United States Embassy in India does not consider religion while issuing visas, a senior US government official said today.

''We don't consider race or religion while issuing visas to Indians nor do we ask the applicant about these things'', said US consul general Peter Kaestner here.

Talking to mediapersons, Mr Kaestner said the US visa policy clearly defines that there will be no queries about race and religion of the people who wants to visit the US.

He also denied that there was any change in the visa policy after 9/11 that there was restriction on any person of a particular religion during issuing the visas.

Clarifying that it is up to the applicant to convince the US interviewing authority on their visas, he said a majority of the visas are rejected as applicants could not convience that they will return to India after the expiry of their visas. ''The visa interview is a very subjective thing...something which is subjective cannot be perfect,'' he said in reply to a poser on the rejection rate.

''Burden of proof is on the applicant and they have to convince the officials that they will return,'' the US official said.

Mr Kaestner, however, said that this year till August, about 7.2 lakh visas have been processed and of all the applicants, about 80 per cent were given the visas. In 2006, the US consulate processed 4.6 lakh visas.

Meanwhile, the consul general announced that an 'American Presence Post' will be set up in Lucknow to focus on people diplomacy, emergency consultancy services for US citizens and commercial interest between both the countries. Besides this, the one person headed Post might also have a 'American Corner' to hightlight the US literary work, he said without giving any time frame for the opening of this post.

He also announced that by next year a 42 visa counter new counsulate building would be opened in Mumbai while the visa counters at Delhi and Kolkata counsulates would be doubled.

''A new US counsulate would also come up at Hyderabad'', Mr Kaestner further added.

UNI