In a move that would facilitate Indians heading to Great Britain complete their travel formalities in the shortest span of time, the United Kingdom Home office on Tuesday announced the launch of a new “super priority” service, under which Indian visitors can get visas to UK the same day.
In line with a promise made by British Prime Minister David Cameron during his recent visit to India, the UK Home office unveiled the “Super Priority Visa Service” (SPVS), first of its kind to be launched anywhere in the world. The same-day UK visa service would be available in New Delhi from May 15 (Wednesday) and it would be made available to customers in Chennai in the near future.
The SPVS is a first class visa service to facilitate urgent travel. It complements the UK's existing Fast Track Service and the recently announced Online Payment option. “This is part of the UK Home Office's initiative to launch additional services to ease the customers' UK Visa Application journey,” an official release from the British High Commission stated.
The new service is available to customers applying for a 6-month or 2-year multiple entry visit visa (excluding student visitor) who have previously travelled to the UK, USA, Australia, New Zealand, Canada or a Schengen country within the last 5 years. It is also available to visa applicants sponsored by companies who are members of our Business Express Programme.
“The service will initially be available in Delhi and Mumbai with plans to expand to Chennai in the near future,” the British High Commission release said, adding that the customers wishing to access the service could make their appointments forthwith.
The SPVS is an optional service and involves an additional fee. The fee for the SPVS is Rs.51,000 (£600), in addition to the standard fee for the type of visa being applied for. Applicants must complete an online form and submit their applications, by appointment, before 9.30 am.
“If an application is successful the visa will be ready for collection by 5.30 pm the same day in New Delhi or by 6.30 pm the same day in Mumbai,” the British High Commission release said.
Further information about the fees, eligibility criteria and how to schedule an appointment can be accessed from www.vfs-uk-in.com (additional services).
Prime Ministers David Cameron and Manmohan Singh agreed in 2010 that the UK and India should seek to double bilateral trade to £23bn by 2015.
The UK Home Office's published processing time for visas (excluding settlement) is to process 90 per cent within 15 working days. Further information about processing times and visa applications is available at www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk.
Reacting to the launch of Super Priority UK Visa Service, the British High Commissioner to India Sir James Bevan said: “I am delighted to see the Super Priority Visa service being launched in India before any other country. For the first time, Indian visitors will now have the option of a same-day visa to the UK. This underlines our strong commitment to make an already excellent visa service even better”.
“We expect this new service to be particularly useful for business. Opportunities arise at short notice. We want Indian entrepreneurs and businessmen to be able to seize these. The UK and India are already on course to double bilateral trade by 2015.The new Super Priority Visa will help make sure that we hit this target,” Bevan said.