Reduce long visa wait time in India: Indian travel industry to the US
Although the wait time for US visitor visa appointments in India has decreased from a peak of 999 days at the end of 2021, it still exceeds a year.
The US Department of State website Friday showed wait times for B1/B2 visa interview at 459 days in Chennai; 450 in Mumbai; 407 in Hyderabad; 381 in Kolkata and 379 in Delhi.
The travel industry urged the US to bring this down further.
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Travel between the two countries is indeed increasing rapidly, but it could grow even more if it weren't for the dual challenges of long wait times and a lack of direct flights.
Kolkata is your best bet to get a US tourist visa quickly
Union Tourism Ministry additional secretary Suman Billa said, “Even though the (traveller) numbers are good, we really have not capitalised on the potential that we have from a tourism (between India and US) perspective. Given the way pace at which Indian economy is growing, outbound tourism from here will only increase.”
He also called for simplifying the US visa process, which though issued for 10 years, is “cumbersome and tiresome.”
Jonathan M Heimer, US embassy’s minister counsellor for commercial affairs, said the pace of visa application processing has picked up leading to the issuance of a record number of visas.
“On the backend for the application processing, we've been able to process something like 60% more visas with more or less the same resources. And also we have issued more than 11 lakh visas in the
