India’s Mission in the UAE has launched a fresh tender to outsource front-end passport, visa and other consular services across all seven emirates after a court-mandated reset of the previous procurement. The Embassy in Abu Dhabi and Consulate-General in Dubai issued the new request for proposals on 29 September, seeking a single operator to run 15 Indian Consular Application Centres for an initial three-year term. The move follows a protracted legal dispute in India that left the contract in limbo and forced mission staff to process applications manually, causing weeks-long backlogs for the UAE’s 4.3 million-strong Indian diaspora. Interim provider Alhind Tours & Travels will continue to handle applications until the new concession is awarded, with bids due by 26 October and a winner expected on 27 November. Under the tender conditions the successful bidder must guarantee online appointment slots within five working days, digitise documentation, provide end-to-end tracking and maintain dedicated grievance channels. Services covered include passports, Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards, police-clearance certificates, attestation and visa applications—critical paperwork for thousands of Indian professionals rotating in and out of the UAE every month. For corporate mobility teams the retender offers a chance to press for streamlined bulk-submission processes and service-level agreements that align with assignment timetables. Employers should, however, caution employees that procedures remain unchanged until the new vendor comes on-stream, and should build lead time into renewal cycles in case of handover-related teething issues. The embassy’s consultative approach—seeking bidder feedback on customer-experience metrics—signals a wider push among foreign missions in the UAE to professionalise third-party visa outsourcing and mirror the Emirates’ own digital-first immigration ecosystem. Once implemented, the upgraded network should cut queues, shrink processing times and reduce mid-assignment travel to distant consular centres.
Source: The National
