I heard and witnessed lots of bad reports -- even personally got hit by this a few times and had to cancel trips because of it.

BLS can't be canned and replaced soon enough IMO. The downside is that if the GoI doesn't revise its approach, we may end up being no better off than before. Why is that? The GoI hasn't shown a willingness to abandon the use of contractors as middlemen when it comes to basic consular functions for the country, and so we may end up having a rinse, wash, and repeat cycle where BLS's replacement ends up being as bad or worse than even BLS.

The "solution" may be an e-visa/ETA type process like that which Australia and Turkey uses. Fortunately, India is considering just such an approach and it would really facilitate the elimination of clown contractors.