VFS Online Indian Visa Service

...service to a company called VFS Global. This is a company that specialises in handling visa applications for various governments around the world. When they were first announced as the new 'only way to get a visa' for India, there was an outcry that people would have to pay a fee to VFS and further chaos was sure to ensue. I'd like to reassure readers that this isn't the case.

==Step by step to getting your visa!==

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...need to go to the VFS site to get the paperwork. Read around the site because there's lots of information but it isn't always where you expect it to be. If at all possible DON'T use their premium rate enquiry number - it's ultra-expensive and it's unlikely that you can't find the information somewhere else for free.

===Step 2 - my suggestion is to go to the trip advisor website - www.tripadvisor.co.uk - and track down their forum on ... more

NOTE - this advice applies only for UK nationals applying for tourist visas. For non-nationals or other types of visas (business, student etc) there may be some differences. However, I hope that most people will find this of some use.
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My husband is a very calm man. With the exception of IKEA flat pack furniture and the annihilation of 'old labour', there's not a lot that makes him lose his cool, so I was taken aback when I raised the topic of getting visas for our forthcoming holiday to India and he practically exploded. Don't mention the words 'Indian' and 'Visa' around him or you'd better make sure you have a comfy seat and a cup of tea because the tirade that follows may take some time.

So why's he so worked up about the topic?

Approximately 2 years ago we decided we'd had enough with paying for visa agencies to get our Indian visas and so we went to the Birmingham Consulate General and did it ourselves. We had a very pleasant day out, saved a bit of money, and I smugly wrote a 'how to' review about getting Indian visas which to date has received more than thousands of hits on both the well-known review sites.

Then last year when we needed visas again we discovered that all the smooth-running systems of the past had gone to pot and total chaos had enveloped anyone trying to get a visa. In short, the Indian High Commission in London and the Consulates in Birmingham and Edinburgh had taken a decision to no longer accept postal visa applications, leaving thousands of travellers with no option other than to pay exorbitant fees to visa agencies (who couldn't offer services better than 6-8 weeks for turnaround) or to go in person and stand in line.

Hubby's first attempt about 3 weeks before we were due to go, led to hours of standing outside the consulate, complete confusion, running all over Birmingham on a wild goose chase and eventual total failure. We explored other options - such as the weekend 'visa surgeries' but eventually decided there was no alternative that could give us any guarantees. Hubby thus got up one morning at 3 am, packed a flask of tea, a sleeping bag, a hot water bottle and a deckchair and went to sit outside the Consulate General, joining the line at 4 am on one of the coldest October nights of recent years. Fortunately, he got the visas but came home scarred by the experience and vowing not to put himself through such a nightmare again. Mind you, he had it relatively easy compared to many people who were trying to get visas form the London High Commission - they were having to sleep on the streets just to get an appointment to come back again, several days later.

So when I read that the 'system' (I use the term very loosely) had changed again, hubby exploded and I had to scrape him off the ceiling.

So what's changed and why?

Even a blind man could see that the old system just wasn't delivering the goods. The Consulates and High Commission were crashing under the abuse they got from aggravated visa applicants. The 'normal' day to day business that the offices were supposed to attend to, all went to the wall under the pressure of the troubles. Someone must have given a short, discrete cough and pointed out that this needed fixing and needed fixing soon before the tourist industry took an even worse hit.

People in their thousands were pulling out of trips to India and heading for destinations like Thailand where they didn't need visas. And no doubt there was also at the back of some minds, the thought that the Commonwealth Games of 2010 are looming and they'd better be slick by then or half the events would be called off because the contestants were camped on the pavement waiting for visas.

Consequently the Indian government decided to pull out of handling visa applications directly and outsource the service to a company called VFS Global. This is a company that specialises in handling visa applications for various governments around the world. When they were first announced as the new 'only way to get a visa' for India, there was an outcry that people would have to pay a fee to VFS and further chaos was sure to ensue. I'd like to reassure readers that this isn't the case.

Step by step to getting your visa!

Step 1. Go to http://in.vfsglobal.co.uk/

This is the website of the company that issues the visas. If you 'google' the term 'Indian visas' you will find lots of agencies offering to get your visas for you but it's best to ignore these. Many are playing on last year's chaos to scare unwary travellers into parting with their cash for an unnecessary service. Whatever company you might enlist to help get your visas, you will still need to go to the VFS site to get the paperwork. Read around the site because there's lots of information but it isn't always where you expect it to be. If at all possible DON'T use their premium rate enquiry number - it's ultra-expensive and it's unlikely that you can't find the information somewhere else for free.

Step 2 - my suggestion is to go to the trip advisor website - www.tripadvisor.co.uk - and track down their forum on India.

This is the place I now go to for all my travel advice. Wherever you want to go, there will be site members who've been, have suffered the same confusion as you, and can offer advice. Type 'Visas' into the search bar and you'll find lots of good advice and lots of people moaning. But forewarned is forearmed! Don't read too many of the early postings because all you'll learn is that when VFS first took over, they confused everyone and the site worked really badly. Be reassured that a lot of the wrinkles have now been ironed out.

Step 3 - get all your information together.

Once you start the online application, you can't save what you are doing. You need to get through the whole thing in one go. So have your passport with you. Get your tickets out and make sure you know the dates of your travel. If you have already booked a hotel or a tour, make sure you know where your first night will be or if you are staying with friends or relatives, have their address to hand. If you haven't booked yet - get the name and address of any hotel in the city you land in and write that down instead. Ironically the website will tell you not to finalise any arrangements until you have your visas - so if you did what they said, you'd not book anything until you had the visa and wouldn't get the visa because you couldn't answer half the questions. Classic Chicken-and-Egg.

If more than one member of your family is travelling together, you can apply for up to five additional family members at the same time. Hubby and I did both our applications together.

Business visa applicants will need to make sure their local contacts have given them the addresses of two local sponsors of referees. These are unlikely to ever be checked but you need to write something. For a tourist visa, you can avoid this part and write 'not applicable' or 'none' in lots of the boxes. It's worth remembering that there's one form for lots of different visa types so it's fair to assume that they don't need all the details for a simple tourist visa. So relax.....they won't subject you to the same scrutiny as someone applying for a job in India or wanting to live there.

Make sure you know where your mother, father and spouse were all born - again, I can't imagine anyone checks it, but these are questions you have to answer. This applies for every applicant so if you are doing the papers for someone else, have them there or at the end of the phone in case you need them.

And have your credit card ready if you want to make an online payment.

Step 4 - check the site to know where your application has to go to

VFS have several different offices and if you send your application to the wrong office, it won't be processed. The information is in the section of the website called 'Jurisdiction'. All applicants in Scotland have to use the Edinburgh office. Two dozen or so English counties - mostly in a line north of Birmingham - have to use the Birmingham office and everyone else (so Wales and southern England) has to use the London office. To make it slightly more confusing, there are two London offices - one at Victoria and one somewhere in the East End. Make a note of which you need to use as it will be a question you have to answer on the form.

Step 5 - take a very deep breath and start the online application.

Take the phone off the hook and make sure you've not got any plans for the next hour or two. You would be mad as hell if you got halfway through and then had to stop for Eastenders or to take the dog for a walk. We got through our application in about an hour, covering two people and having to redo some sections when we got them wrong at the first attempt.

As you go through the application, each time you submit a page, it will tell you if you made any mistakes. You can then put these right and move on to the next page. Stay calm, swear at the screen if you want to but remember it can't hear you. Take it steady and - like any marathon task - one step at a time and you'll get there in the end. We had to repeat a couple of pages, call my mum for her new phone number, phone a friend for her post code and so on.

A few tips - you can skip these if you are not actually about to apply and are just reading this to be polite!

1. If you don't know the answer, try 'none' or 'NA' (not applicable). If that's not acceptable, when you submit each page, it will tell you and ask you to change it. NA or None are likely to work for questions like name and address of sponsors.

2. Avoid commas and symbols - write 'and' not '&'. When writing addresses, don't put commas between lines. If you have any symbols in your name, don't use them.

3. Referees in the UK - we used my mum and a friend - it doesn't matter who you put in here. You don't have to know a bank manager and a doctor, just people who actually exist.

4. Phone numbers should be entered as 0044 or for India 0091 - for example 00441234567890

5. Issuing passport authority - for most people this will be UKPA (United Kingdom Passport Authority) but it's useful to know which office did your application - in my case, this is Peterborough which is indicated by a P on my passport.

6. Type of visa - most people will want a 6 month tourist visa. This costs £30 plus fees. If you intend to go more than once in a 12 month period, you can ask for a 12 month tourist visa but that's not an enormous saving at £50. Now that I know how simple the system is, I'd probably not bother to go for the longer visa unless I absolutely knew I needed it. 'S' means a single entry visa, and 'M' is multiple. We applied for 6 month Multi-entry visa because we are going over the border to Bhutan and back and need to be able to get back into India.

There is also a lot of talk on the forums about 5 year multi-entry visas but unless you or your parents were born in India, you won't get one of these.

Step 6 - repeat the entire process for any other people for whom you are applying

Just

Step 7 - print copies of your applications

I believe you can come back and do this later but if you have a printer, do it now and then nothing can go wrong.

Step 8 - Write down your reference number

Each application (or set of applications) gets a unique reference number. WRITE IT DOWN and put it somewhere safe. We put the number on the envelope we sent the passports in and on the return envelope as well. If your application is delayed, you'll need this number to track its progress.

Step 9 - Online payment

This isn't obligatory but it is easy and avoids the need to find other payment methods. If you are making a postal application, paying online means you don't need to pay for postal orders, and you won't be allowed to make payment by cheque. If you are going to the office in person, then you could take cash. We chose online payment and applications for two people for 6 month visas cost £78.90 in total.

Step 10 - get all your papers together

You will need a printed copy of your application, two identical passport photos for each applicant, postal orders (if you didn't pay online), your passport and ideally a pre-paid special delivery envelope (SDE) from the post office which can be used to return the passports to you. VFS will only put up to two passports in each SDE so if you are applying for more visas, send more SDEs.

Step 11 - send your application

We posted everything off by special delivery. If you are lucky enough to live near a VFS office and to have spare time to drop off and collect your passports, you can go in person.

Does it work?

We did the online application forms and made online payment. Then we sat on everything for a week because I needed my passport. Then we sent everything off on a Monday and the passports were back on Friday of the same week. You can no longer get the 'same day' service that used to be available when the consulates issued visas but we were impressed at the speed of the postal service. And for most people requesting tourist visas, the current service beats the old postal service by several weeks. For years we had to allow 6-8 weeks when working through visa agencies so I'm happy to give a big thumbs up to the new service. I just hope they let it bed in and don't change it again too soon.

Some people have complained that it's now almost impossible to apply if you don't have a computer. But if you don't, I'm going to guess that you are unlikely to be reading this review which is probably a good thing, because I don't know how you'd get around the online application problem. My main suggestion is go and find a friend with a computer, internet connection and a printer and do it that way. Oh, and have a great holiday. 

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