Indians Can Now Get US Visa Appointments At American Embassies Abroad As Per New Rules

Indians can now get visas to the United States by approaching US embassies in other countries like Thailand, the US embassy in New Delhi announced on Friday (3 February).

The facility will be available for Indians seeking travel and business visas but not eligible for interview waiver, such as first-time applicants and people whose visas have expired more than four years ago.

The embassy also informed in another tweet that it processed over 1 lakh visa applications in January itself and continues to increase its capacity further. It also said that such facilities will be opened at other locations in the future too.

The move has nonetheless left netizens wondering how it is supposed to reduce the trouble caused to visa prospects, who will now have to travel to another country to get their visa applications approved.

The backlog in approval of visa applications has become a contentious issue in the last two years, with delays of over 500 days in most parts of the country. 

The US government has taken several steps to reduce delays, including scheduling exclusive interviews for first-time applicants and boosting the staff at consular offices. 

The US State Department has begun processing interview waiver cases remotely for applicants who have held US visas previously.

The backlog time is likely to fall only by mid-2023 and is expected to reach a record 1.2 million a year, making applications from India the second highest after China, as per PTI.