From Thursday 22 October, the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi will shutter four of its outsourced Indian Consular Application Centres (ICACs)—Musaffah, Al Reem Island, Dubai Investment Park 1 and Sharjah Al Majaz—citing “administrative reasons”. The decision trims the network from 16 to 12 facilities but, according to officials, will not reduce capacity thanks to expanded counters at the high-volume Bur Dubai site, which now has 45 service windows. ICACs handle passport renewals, visa endorsements and document attestation for the UAE’s 3.5 million-strong Indian diaspora. Walk-in processing for Tatkal passports, newborn registrations and emergency certificates will continue at all remaining centres, and applicants aged 60 plus will still be accepted without an appointment. Centre opening hours (08:00–18:00) are unchanged, but customers are asked to arrive no earlier than 15 minutes before their slot to ease crowding. The embassy move follows July’s first passport-fee increase since 2012: a 36-page renewal now costs AED 450, while Tatkal service is AED 900. The closures are intended to concentrate staff resources where demand is highest and cut overheads after a pandemic-era surge in online appointment no-shows. For mobility teams managing large cohorts of Indian assignees, the change means travel to consular appointments may involve longer commutes—particularly for residents of Dubai South and Sharjah’s Al Majaz area—and should be factored into project timelines. Immigration advisers recommend booking slots early through the Al Hind Tours & Travels portal and double-checking biometric capture locations before paying fees. Employers sponsoring group visa renewals should consider arranging transport to Bur Dubai or Al Danah to avoid productivity losses. The embassy says it will review throughput data over the next six months and may add pop-up mobile desks in outlying emirates if bottlenecks emerge.
Source: Khaleej Times
