this may be important: Visa Outsourcing

amarama

just found out visas for India are being outsourced. I am not sure exactly how this will effect other Americans! Hopefully it will be for the better.

incitatus

Not just Americans.
There are invites for tenders regarding this outsourcing here in the UK also.

Aishah

What does 'outsourced' mean?

__________________
"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards."

Nick-H

Is this international, then?

__________________
.


IndiaMike Mod Team (The Grumpy One)

Hartson

What do you mean by outsourced? I just got my India visa from PVS international, and it came back really quickly with no problems.

Nick-H

Ahh.... such sweet innocence

It means deciding that your qualified, experienced staff are too expensive, and finding an agency to do the work instead. As you are now a paying a fraction of what your own department cost you, and the agency is profit-motivated, it means that the people who do the work are low paid and minimally qualified.

It doesn't have to be that way, but management by bean-counters very often has this end result. They see that they are employing 100 people to do x amount of work. Agency A quotes for doing the same amount of work with 75 people on 60% of the pay, Agency B quotes for 60 people on 45% of the pay. Both agencies say that, yes, this includes the projected increase in workload to 2x amount. Both agencies employ sales staff and 'consultants' with big mouths and small brains who, like babies crying for their mother, know exactly how to get the attention of, and then charm, those bean counters.

Bean-counter: accountant with blinkers. Unable to see any further in life than the number 4 is bigger than the number 3. These are the kind of people that refuse to pay a maintenance contract for a machine because it costs too much, and then suffer the losses when said machine breaks down. They have little or no practical experience outside numbers, and tend to be obsessed with small ones. Paper clips, anybody?

However, people from accounts do make better managers than people who have no knowledge of anything outside sales. These people don't know how to keep accounts and don't think the boring admin work of a company has any value, and don't realise that every company should have a bean counter!

Aishah

Nick - "Aah, such sweet innocence" - And at an old age too!!!
Seriously, thanks for the excellent explanation, now I understand... I wonder if as you asked this will be International? I guess this word applies to when you ring your bank or Visa for some problem and you get an Indian English voice replying from some call centre in Bangalore! That would be outsourcing? Is the Visa thing then done through mailing your passport?

wonderwomanusa

It depends on where you are. The New York Consulate is outsourcing visa processing, but there is no notice of such activity on the website of the India Consulate in San Francisco.

pontesnm

Well the US has outsourced visas for Indian tourists and businessmen in Mumbai in 2006 (possibly earlier) and so the Indian Government is following suit at least for the US. The Indian Consulate in NYC is in one of the most expensive real estate markets in NYC (and possibly in the US). Just to rent additional space to hire extra persons to process visas would be very expensive. Wages in NYC are also higher than elsewhere in the US. The outsourcing shop could have an office in South Dakota (or anywhere land is cheap) and hire at the prevailing (presumably lower) wages. Also the cost of getting a visa is going up as there will be a new processing fee paid to the outsourcing firm.

This procedure will also be effective for San Francisco (as per their website Sept 30.

Nick-H

Do I detect bean counting there?

Dilliwala

It's not clear to me yet - is it a complete outsource? As in, applicants do not go to the embassy/consulates at all, no interviews (if any) by embassy staff, etc.? What some of the embassies have out-sourced in Delhi is the visa delivery only. U have to hand in your papers at the embassy (with a prior appointment!), the agency then gives you back your pp at their own office.

Beena450

Well, they can't be any worse then the state of the place at the moment.

I spent 2 days at the India Embassy in last week. Turned up last thursday at 10.30 thinking that the queue would have gone by then and it will be a breeze. How wrong I was..... I ended up waiting 2 hours and then beeing given a ticket to come back on friday and I would be seen between 10.00 and 10.30.

I got there at 9.30 just to be sure and was still waiting 2 hours later. Finally got seen at 12.30 and told I needed to bring a letter from my employers.. So am not looking forward to going back..

But the stories I heard from other people, for some it was the third day in a row they had come back. Some had started queuing at 6.00 in the morning. So anyone thinking its going to be a quick in and out, think again. Also, they have stopped postal visa's.

__________________
good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pakinuttah/
http://www.getjealous.com/pakinuttah/

vireya

I think Indian visas should be out-sourced to India.

jenk

The website doesnt indicate they have stopped postal visa at all - how could they? applicants are all over the US.

It looks pretty simple to me.

As far as the Indian Consulate in NY, I was unable to get my business done there in person in a timely way and wound up using an agency CIBT through my office. It was a first taste of Indian bureaucratic process - too bad I didnt have time to spend a day waiting in line.

Here's the link to the new service.

http://indiavisa.travisaoutsourcing....et-a-visa.html

Beena450

No, as far as I know its just in the UK that postal visa's have stopped. Someone at the embassey told me.