Indian business and leisure travellers hoping to visit the United States face a renewed planning challenge after the US Department of State’s latest appointment-availability release (17 September) put the next B-1/B-2 interview dates at 12 months for Hyderabad, 11½ months for Mumbai and 10 months for New Delhi. The figures, first reported on 27 September by the Times of India, underline how the bottleneck has shifted from adjudication to simply getting a slot at one of the five US visa posts in India. Chennai and Kolkata fare slightly better at roughly seven and six-and-a-half months respectively, but the gap between the slowest and fastest cities remains dramatic. Consular officials note that the wait-time table is recalculated in 30-day blocks and does not guarantee an applicant will wait that long; additional interview slots are released without notice and can be re-booked. Even so, the rollback of the interview-waiver (“Dropbox”) facility for many repeat visitors late last year, together with record Indian application volumes, has left the visitor-visa queue badly out of sync with demand. For corporates, the implications are clear: short-notice US trips for client meetings, project kick-offs or conferences are now difficult unless the traveller already holds a valid visa or can qualify for the narrow emergency-appointment criteria. Mobility managers are advising employees to treat the appointment queue itself as a critical-path item—book as soon as travel is even tentatively discussed and monitor the scheduling portal daily for earlier dates. Indian companies are also experimenting with city-shopping, sending staff to whichever consulate currently shows the shortest queue, and budgeting for the additional domestic travel costs. Larger multinational employers are stepping up internal tracking of appointment metrics and proactively refreshing employees’ visas well ahead of expiration. In the longer term the State Department is expected to add more consular adjudicators, but no time-frame has been published. Until capacity catches up, the working rule for Indian travellers is simple: plan US trips at least nine to twelve months ahead, or risk missing critical business windows.
Source: The Times of India
