The reports coming from a senior US diplomat Donald L Heflin suggests that the US embassy and its consulates in India are planning to add more staff to process about 8,00,000 visas in the next year to compensate for the gap created due to the pandemic.
Minister Counselor for Consular Affairs at the US embassy, Donald L Heflin, told reporters that some changes in student visas would also be announced in the coming weeks.
According to Donald, about 800,000 visas are projected to be approved in the next 12 months. He added that they had opened a lot of slots for issuing the visas, and they are prepared to meet the demand for H and L visas.
Before the outbreak of Covid-19, the US had issued 1.2 million visas, and Donald expects to reach the same figure in the next two years.
Donald cleared that the number is not very high on Indian visas that were put on hold due to Covid. He said the embassy would make more announcements about student visas as well in the coming weeks.
Donald also said that they are opening a new office in Hyderabad, and more such branches in New Delhi, Kolkata, and Mumbai will be opened to accommodate new staff to handle the huge demand.
He assured that all the consulates had a permanent phone number and an e-mail address for visa applicants about their appointments.
