The online GEP opened on the 7th of July for people resident in India. The announcement was made on July 6th by USCBP. If you got it on the 3rd then you must the Ambassador I am talking to.

Process followed was online GEP 7th July. GEP approval took about 4 working days & I was notified. It too another 2 days to go live on the portal of the passport sewa kendra. I took the appointment for the next day itself which I think was 13 July. I went to the passport Kendra in New Delhi near CP. Got finger printed & every thing & was told Police verification would be in next 30 days. Got a call from the Cops on my way back home itself asking when they can come over. As luck would have it the prior week itself I had a police verification done for a prior matter & was the same guy. He came over & told me it would take about 10 days to get loaded into the system. It took about 4 days to show up as verification complete & then it went into a holding pattern.

I am assuming I might have been person # 2 at that passport sewa kendra???? The cop for sure had no idea what it was & actually made me walk him thru GEP over the web. He also told me he had another person form the neighbourhood who was GEP approved & he was going there next.

To clarify from the USA CBP level enough people have gotten approved. It seems no one has gotten approved from the MEA here in India & therefore approval showing pending in CBP website. Once MEA gets its act together there will be a sudden flow.

Till then holding pattern as enough fuel in the tanks

You are incorrect with your dates. I applied on July 1st when I was visiting India.

Dont take my word for it just google or go to the website of USCBP July 3rd is when Mr Ambassador with great fanfare got his. The Treaty was signed & agreed on June 26th but was Launched on July 6th. This is on the CBP website.

However I don't think this forum is about a race to the starting line but more about where the hell is the finish line. Thank fully in August 2017 JFK T4 started working with e clearance & that has pretty much removed the need for me to have a GEP cause it take under 5 minutes to be thru it. Last month it took me 3 minutes from Start to Bags....

I recall reading a couple of folks on H1B who applied/got the police verification done in July 2017 and have been approved but there hasn't been any news since, even from the H1B folks. I'm on H1B as well so unfortunately am ineligible to use the kiosks at JFK T4 like the B1/B2 and other folks. Hence, the GEP would be a Godsend. JFK is still manageable even with the regular immigration protocol but I've had a couple of absolute nightmares at Newark in the past year.

Any more H1B folks on here who have been approved since applying in July/August?

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c65e1c4fbc.png

This is from the CBP site. As you can see above 6 July. Treaty was signed & ratified end June. Announcement was made 30th June. I was trying every single day thereon to upload docs. Post uploading & the 4 day wait for it to go live on the Indian system the earliest appointment I got was at the Herald House Kendra.....

Either way some might have lucked out earlier days & gotten it there but in the end we all sitting in the same boat today wondering where is the finish line

it was last published on 6th july....it was earlier published a week prior to that....if there is an update made to the text above then the date will change again....obviously that doesn't mean that the date of launch will change to that date....the reason it was last published on the 6th is because that is when the cbp realised india had put in a stupid requirement to have all indians living abroad return to india for their police verification....the following text was added on the 6th of july to the page you have referenced:

no one lucked out before that date....they opened applications for everyone on the 28th of june....there are multiple reports of people applying well before the 6th of july in this thread & the following thread:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trus...ens-india.html

read the following post from the above mentioned thread that clearly outlines the fact that refunds were even offered to those who applied before 6th july:

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/28541897-post19.html

we are all sitting in the same boat because of the incompetence of the indian government to handle this properly....but it doesn't change the initial application date in any way....

Did anyone who applied in September / October time line last year (2017) had a conditional approval in their TTP or CBP page ?

unfortunately it is....they haven't got their act together & it doesn't seem like they will for a while so all we can do is wait....

Nope - applied in July and completed the police verification in the second week of Sept' 2017 - no updates. The grievance cell is pathetic!

I did get a reply from grievance center after two months, when the due date to resolve say three weeks. Yes it is pathetic and corrupt.
So they replied back saying my file is handed over to MEA and MOH for further processing and approval. Not sure if this is going to take months, years or decades.

Our US-level expectations meet Indian government-level reality