According to a report published in The Indian Express, the US is putting in great effort to resolve the issue of a long period of waiting in issuing visas to India. The freshly appointed diplomat Elizabeth Jones told during a press meeting that the situation in the US with regard to the issuing of visas to India is pretty bad but the US is trying its best to resolve it the soonest as it can. High demand for visas has led to this situation, she said acknowledging it.
She has also told that it is indeed a high-priority issue for Washington and every effort has been put in to ensure that this wait time could be cut down. This initiative of cutting down on the wait time before one gets the visa is also applicable to the training and recruitment of visa counselors. Recruitments of visa counselors are been made very carefully in the US and it also is ensured that proper training is given to them. This would help a lot in speeding up the process in the long run, said Jones.
Indeed there has been a rising concern in India over this long period of waiting for getting a visa to the US. The process is mostly slow for people who are applying for visas for the first time. It is also slow for the people who are applying under the business and tourist categories. During her interaction with the media Jones has gone on to say that the issue of this long wait for the visa started during the Coronavirus pandemic. People had applied much before the outbreak of the pandemic. Then with the lockdowns, the process got stalled indefinitely. This led to a backlog. In fact, backlogs were also reported from different parts of the world too, Jones said.
The situation over the issue of visas is a little too bad because of the high demand. The number of applicants for visas is more in India than in other parts of the world. And this also happens to be another major reason for the slowing down in the process of issuing visas. Jones has further said that currently a lot of effort is being invested in recruitment and training in Washington so that many vice counselors could be deployed in different places.
Jones has told that for the mission in India, a lot of vice counselors would be finishing their training soon. By summer they would be able to completely staff their employees in Delhi and different other consulates for the issue of visas and conducting interviews as well. For the first time, the waiting period for getting visas in India for business people and tourists has reached almost three years. Jones says that she understands how difficult it is. All she requests from the visa applicants is to have a little patience. This has been a high-priority issue for the Washington and they are doing the best they can to resolve it as soon as possible.