India’s Embassy in Abu Dhabi has announced a major re-tender of its outsourced passport, visa and attestation services across the United Arab Emirates. A press release issued on 21 October 2026 confirms that existing provider Al Hind Tours & Travels will continue after 22 October, but that the physical footprint of Indian Consular Application Centres (ICACs) will shrink from 16 to 12. Four under-utilised sites—in Abu Dhabi’s Musaffah district, Al Reem Island, Dubai Investment Park I and Sharjah’s Al Majaz area—will shut their doors tomorrow. Applicants will be redirected to alternative locations in Abu Dhabi city, Al Ain, Madinat Zayed, Ghayathi, Bur Dubai and the Indian Association buildings in Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Ras Al Khaimah, Fujairah, Kalba and Khor Fakkan. For the UAE’s estimated 3.5 million Indian nationals—the country’s largest expatriate community—the consolidation means longer drives for some clients but shorter queues overall. The embassy says the remaining centres have been upgraded with additional biometric counters and self-service kiosks that cut average processing times for emergency travel documents to less than 30 minutes. Corporate mobility managers should update onboarding decks for Indian hires and circulate the revised centre list to HR teams that handle dependent-visa attestations. Those sponsoring domestic staff will need to book appointments earlier, as peak-season capacity has been reduced by roughly 20 percent in Dubai. The embassy is also piloting a WhatsApp chatbot (in English, Hindi and Malayalam) to answer status inquiries—a move designed to eliminate thousands of follow-up calls that previously inundated its helplines. Feedback from the pilot will feed into a broader digital-first strategy slated for full rollout before India’s Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in January 2027.
Source: Embassy of India, Abu Dhabi
