TBM Staff - Mumbai According to a TOI report, the United States has allowed Indians to go to select countries for B1 and B2 visa interviews. The US mission said, “Do you have any upcoming international travel? If so, you may be able to get a visa appointment at the US embassy or consulate at your destination. For example, US embassy in Bang-kok has opened B1/B2 appointment capacity for Indians who will be in Thailand in the coming months. ”
Indians needing to travel to the US urgently have already been going to a third country to get an appointment to apply for American visas due to the long wait here, said Anil Kalsi, joint secretaryof Travel Agents Federation of India. “The places include Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. I had a client who had his H1B stamped in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) since he could not get an appointment in India,” said Kalsi, a Delhi-based travel agent. The US had started sending some “drop box” applications from Indians to its missions outside India, among a series of steps to cut the visa interview wait that had reached almost 1,000 days for B1/B2 cases late last year.
“This January, the US mission to India processed over 1 lakh visa applications. That’s more than in any month since July 2019 and one of our highest monthly totals ever. And we aren’t done yet. Our capacity will continue to increase as our team grows this spring,” the US embassy in Delhi tweeted. More Indian visa applicants were made eligible for interview waiver. These steps are now paying off.
