These include more and more categories being waived off from visa interviews, sending dozens of officials to India to conduct the interviews, screening of visa applications by officials at the State Department here in the US, involving officials from its other diplomatic missions in the process and opening up its embassies and missions in other countries as far as Thailand and Germany for Indian visa-seekers for an in-person interview.For first-time visitor appointments, weve cut a year and two months off the wait time already.
WASHINGTON, Feb 22: People-to-people ties form the bedrock of the India-US relationship and addressing the visa wait time issue is critical to maintaining them, senior administration officials said here. Reducing the visa wait time is a top priority for Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Nancy Jackson told Indian reporters at a roundtable organised on Tuesday by the State Department, along with the Foundation for India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS). […]