India Visa -Applications via VSF

fruitcake_2

From experience, my partner is off to India tomorrow, and we had to rush a visa application thorugh and it has ended up costing over £100 instead of £30, he used ScottsVisa... and although pricey, they got the visa through in two days as promised. I on the other hand would not be so lucky as my parents were born in "India" pre partition, now called Pakistan. Although they have a British passport, and I was born here, they would call me in for an interview and not give me a 6 month visa but at most 3 months. I know this because of my sister who went on a tour of India and had a great deal of hassle because she was honest about where our parents were born. Have found out since that you CANNOT go to the High Commision to get a visa, they stopped this because of the mess they were making of the job.
And unfortunately VFS is the only route, as far as I know. But, going from Manchester although you are meant to go to the Birmingham office, my OH did it from London.

You can't be seen in Manchester apparently, just Birmingham, Edinburgh or London.

You fill in the visa application form online, and make sure you get an appointment time online too. Turn over time varies from 4days to 2weeks, depending on whether you have any Pakistani relatives....from my experience.

Tojo_Ralph

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

VFS are utter crooks - there is very good evidence to suggest that they've been actively involved in bribery to secure the business from many embassies.

As it would make interesting reading, do you have any links to this good evidence?

nigelgg

It is a waste of time and money using an agent instead of going to VFS. The Indian High Commission (not Embassy or Consulate) only issues visas. All visa applications have to be made through their agents, VFS. So, using an agent to apply for a visa just means that you have two agents to go through, not just one.

greenface

hope you and your partner have a great time in India hopefully all will end up good.
Just out of interest re. the hassle and price and hard work it takes the average joe or joan to apply for a visa (even worse for English citizens with Pakistani ancestors)
how difficult is it for Indian citizens to apply for a holiday visa to UK.

Also for countries where we have to pay a "landing fee" "entering fee" "call it what you like fee" would it be unfair to charge persons from that country to pay us an equivilant fee for landing

ohh i could go on

442454

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your comments -all very helpful.
In the end we filled out the online application forms and went to Manchester only to be told to come back with more documentation.
We made a second appointment and went with all the requested documentation only to be told that we must make our aplication directly to the London Centre.
My partners mother was born pre-partition too and has been a British citizen for over 40 years but we still had all the requests for information.
The most ridiculous thing of all is that was that they said I was now under the same scrutiny as my husband and my nationality was now considered to be Pakistani (because my husband's parents lived in PK after the partition) despite the fact that I have no PK heritage, have never been there and both my partner and I were born in the UK!!
It is one of the most useless organisations I have ever dealt with, and chances are I won't bother ever applying for a visa to go to India ever again based on this experience alone!! (Ringing their helpline is just as useless and I am still awaiting responses to my emails I sent to them 3 weeks ago asking for information!!)

Info for anyone considering ringing the VFS helpline -they gave me incorrect information both times I rung them, so I'm not sure you can trust them...and you'll just end up with a hefty phone bill.
They told me that neither I or my OH would need to provide additional information despite the fact that I explained the heritage circumstances, and they told me that we could make an application at the Manchester Centre and would get a visa within 2 weeks. I was dubious of what she said anyway from what I had read though.

By the way, I did try to contact the HCI for information because I wanted to clarify what they needed from me, but they won't help you -they'll just give you the number for the VFS helpline.

All this for a one week tourist visa....and I've got family in India AND my parents were born there!!