Why everyone loves to hate VFS Global
₹1,000 for the passport to be brought back to Delhi. He could even authorize someone in Kolkata to collect it. But none of these options made sense since the mariner would lose time.
His bags were packed and he had to leave by the third week of August. Eventually, he deferred the joining date, and his employer, who was paying for the travel to the US, incurred a financial loss. He took solace from the fact that he was not the only one who faced this hassle.
When he went to collect the passport in Delhi, he met a lady with a similar problem. She jostled with the passport collection staff at VFS because her passport had been dispatched to the Chennai centre without her consent. VFS Global is a sub-contractor to CGI Federal Inc., the prime contractor for US government operations.
Complaints regularly surface on social media about the visas VFS processes for other governments as well. People have complained about misplaced passports, unethical employees selling visa slots, unauthorized biometric enrolments by employees, security guards at the centre gates asking for bribes, technology bottlenecks in the company’s website and aggressive up-selling of other services. Travel agents have concerns around opaqueness in the way the company or its employees operate.
Many believe that such lapses are a fallout of the monopoly VFS enjoys. The company, founded by Zubin Karkaria, started in 2002 in Mumbai but is today headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, and in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. Besides handling the administrative work around visas, the company also provides passport and consular services.
For travellers from India, VFS today provides processing services for over 50 countries. The competition pales when compared. BLS
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