A taste of their own medicine: How British tourists to India are struggling with sudden visa delays

Visas delays have become all too common for Indians travelling to the West. But now, the British are getting a taste of their own medicine as tourists planning trips to India have to face a long wait.

There’s a reported “change” in the way India processes visas. The Indian High Commission in the United Kingdom has started enforcing a rule which requires British citizens to visit visa centres in person. As a result, the wait time for tourists looking to travel to India has increased.

Also read: Explained: The India-UK trade deal and why it is on the ‘verge of collapse’

Visa agents in the UK received notices that they are no longer permitted to apply for tourist visas on behalf of applicants. The Indian High Commission has said that the in-person visa application rule has come into force to stop travel agents from illegally charging fees to process visas for travellers.

Travel plans hit

Since the rule has come into force, it has affected the travel plans of British tourists. Why so?

According to a report on NDTV, there are no visa appointments available for British citizens. There has been a growing backlog for visas to India in the last few months.

Appointments at India’s nine visa processing centres in Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Edinburgh, central London, Hounslow, Leicester and Manchester are fully booked for more than a month, reports Mirror, UK.

British citizens, who have plans to travel to India, have been complaining that they have not been getting slots for visa appointments. That is not all. Even the time-consuming visa process has them fretting.

Now hundreds are left with little choice but to cancel their plans to travel to India with many losing money on flights and accommodation.

“Brits lose expensive holidays as last-minute visa change blocks thousands from India. The change to the visa application process for Brits came after Home Secretary Suella Braverman said Brexit voters did not want an open border policy with the country.” https://t.co/RNnpKFUhYx

— Sharell Cook (@AboutIndia) October 11, 2022

A sudden change?

The Indian High Commission has said that there has been no change in the visa application process, adding that visa applicants have always been expected to apply in person at the mission’s outsourced VFS Global centres in London, reports moneycontrol.

In a statement, it said that the High Commission aims to improve visa services by streamlining processes and addressing “any delays and shortfalls”.

Press Release: @HCI_London on reports on visa issues. ⁦@MEAIndia⁩ pic.twitter.com/JSqpFInlOt

— India in the UK (@HCI_London) October 7, 2022

The High Commissioner of India to the UK has also spoken about the issue. “First and foremost, we understand that there has been difficulty in getting these appointments, we are doing our best to ameliorate the situation,” Vikram Doraiswami said in his video message from India House in London. He assured that more visa slots would soon be released online and efforts are being made to ramp up capacity in partnership VFS, reports NDTV.

Doing it wrong

According to Amrit Singh, co-founder and managing director of UK tour operator TransIndus, a couple of visa companies would enter without an appointment with 20 or 30 passports. “They were being processed. All of a sudden, somebody higher up has realised that this is breaking the rules. So they’ve put a stop to it,” he told travel media company Skift.

“It was a casual arrangement (before) that the visa services carved out for themselves, with the local offices. I don’t think it was a formal arrangement sanctioned by the local High Commission,” Singh told Skift.

A fallout of Suella Braverman’s remarks?

There has been some tension in ties between Britain and India after Home Secretary Suella Braverman remarked that Indians overstay in the UK.

“I have concerns about having an open borders migration policy with India because I don’t think that’s what people voted for with Brexit," Braverman had told the Spectator earlier in the month. “Look at migration in this country, the largest group of people who overstay are Indian migrants.”

Also read: Do Indians really overstay in UK? What did the British home secretary say?

Now some in the UK have said that the insistence on in-person applications is a fallout of the comments and India’s way of making their displeasure clear.

Journalist Sunny Handal wrote on Twitter on 10 October, “I was told this morning that the Indian government is retaliating against Suella Braverman’s comments last week by putting a delay on visas to India. This has led to hundreds of British Indians having their plans thrown into disarray over visa delays.”

He said that this would affect all British citizens but especially impact those of Indian origin as Diwali nears.

I was told this morning that the Indian government is retaliating against Suella Braverman's comments last week by putting a delay on visas to India.

This has led to hundreds of British Indians having their plans thrown into disarray over visa delays. /1

— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) October 10, 2022

Earlier, the Britishers could also apply for a paper visa to India through the post but the process has now been banned.

An experience common to Indians

With the in-person rule being enforced, Britons who are not used to a wait for visas have to face what Indians have been experiencing for months, especially post the pandemic.

The unprecedented delays in getting UK visas hit both Indian visitors and students with the 21-day process taking more than two months in some cases. The British High Commission had in July announced a six-week timeframe to get visitor visas. “Standard visitor visas are taking around six weeks to process…. Some applications might take longer. We are working hard to get back to the three-week service standard,” a spokesperson of the British High Commission in Delhi told The Times of India in July.

In August, British High Commissioner to India, Alex Ellis, apologised for visa delays and advised Indians against purchasing their tickets until they get the document processed. He said the delays were happening because of a surge in demand for travel to the UK after the pandemic and because of “global events, particularly the Russian invasion of Ukraine”.

“What are we doing about it? We are putting more resources into this. We are training more people and we are keeping open the priority visa service,” he said.

With inputs from agencies

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