London High Commission Ends Postal Visa Applications

The High Commission of India, London
put out a Press Release yesterday, entitled
Urgent Notice to Visa Applicants using Postal Service.

It means that we have got to go ourselves to the Consular Services or pay for Travel Agents to obtain our visas, these Agents are quoting between £15 to £20 on top of your visa.

And here's the link: Press Release Details : HCI London

This has been mentioned in another thread, and added to the Visa FAQs thread, but it is such important information to those in UK planning trips that I don't indit getting a thread of its own!

Got my visas on friday.

Please remember that when you go to the HC there are 2 queues. Ones is for consular services and other for visas for foreign nationals. Join the correct queue. We joined the queue at 08:00 am. The tokens for visas are handed out from 8:30 onwards. We got token number 40 and were issued with visas by 10:00 am.

Is this a security thing or just illogical - More queues, more expense!

Can you take applications on behalf of your partner or do you both have to attend?

Yes.

You don't even need to attend yourself, I've been a few times to get visas for friends.

Out of mild curiousity does anybody know why they have stopped postal applications -I can't think of a sensible reason for this decision.

It's a commercial thing. That's consultant-speak: stands out a mile! Oh dear...

Steven... I get this mental picture of you saying to all your friends, "Please, can I get your visa for you?" . Except I don't suppose you get time for mornings off at HCI London these days .

I did enjoy my visa trips, even though it meant getting up at least an hour earlier than usual.

anything to do with the postal strikes??

the HCdoes not want to be bblamed for postal backlogs and people not getting their visas

make sense

Nahhhh... there were always postal strikes.

Can you still make postal applications to Birmingham. I had a quick browse of their site yesterday and I am sure that it mentioned that they still accept postal applications, but don't quote me on that.

I will have to have a closer look, or give them a call.

It is thought that you can.

it's a response to the postal strikes.

postal strikes don't happen that often in the UK (they don't), but the staggered nature of the current round of strikes makes the HC response understandable and considerate.

I rang up the visa section of the Consulate in Birmingham the other day and the guy I spoke to (who very helpful, considering what some embassies can be like!) said that the consulate in Birmingham is still accepting postal visa applications. The application form is slightly different from the one on the HCI London website and is on the website of the Indian Consulate in Birmingham.

Not sure how the turnround time differs- the London consulate used to be very fast. I'll try to remember to post here to say how fast they were.

I changed the thread title again to make the matter clear at a glance.