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MUMBAI, INDIA, October 13, 2006: Tired of waiting for months to get an appointment for an interview to secure a US visa? Here’s some good news for you. The prolonged wait for a visa may soon be a thing of the past with US authorities looking to streamline the process for applying for non-immigrant visas to America. Their goal: clearing visas in six days, instead of the two to six months it takes currently. As part of a countrywide effort in this direction, the US Consulate General in Mumbai has announced the addition of over 8,000 appointment dates to the schedule for the next three months. Chief of Consular Services Glen Keiser said: “Every year over 125,000 non-immigrant US visas are adjudicated in India. Due to limited resources, the processing of the applications used to take almost six months. The authorities found this to be too long a delay. So, more resources, with regard to increase in the number of personnel attending to applicants, are being mobilized. In order to further speed up the process, we have a new Consulate coming up at the Bandra-Kurla Complex in Mumbai, which will be operational by April 2008. The new Consulate will process double the number of applications we do here.” The new building will have more staff, greater space and a larger waiting hall. With the US Consulate General here initiating steps to eliminate backlog of visa applications, Mumbai is all set to become the leading non-immigrant US visa processing post in the world, Keiser said. Other consulates are also being upgraded. Keiser also sought to dispel apprehensions about preference being given to business and student visas. “Last year, out of the 125,000 non-immigrant visa applications that were received, 33,000 (26%) were requests for skilled work visas (H1B & L), while 10,500 applications were for student visas, especially for pursuing education at the Masters level. But this does not mean that they do not go through the same process as other applications do. The procedure is the same for everyone,” he said.

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