Hi All,

I am a UK citizen trying to get a visa for India. I used to travel a couple of times a year on the e-visa but we now need to apply for paper visas (likely as the UK is not being particularly nice to our Indian friends visa-wise either!).

My application, on an executive five day service, has taken over a month and I've now been told my application has been sent to Delhi for more checks and the status has changed from 'under process' to 'under processing'. Not very helpful! Does anyone here have any information on why this is happening and how long it will take?

Thanks

We are rather out in the cold visa-wise. I don't believe many, if any, of the more favoured nations are a push-over for indians seeking visas.

It's a bargaining chip I guess, but not one of significant concern to our foreign secretary at the moment: outside those circles it's not clear what the quid pro quo might be. India's tourism sector can't be too happy with the situation.

If the Modi's bromance with Boris yielded no fruit, i can't see Truss providing him with much comfort.

I'm guessing you had no Pakistan visits, other connections with troublesome neighbours, or media interess disclosed in your application: so maybe you'd applied for something more complex than a single visit visa. I understand that long term and multiple entry versions are, errrr, discouraged.

The whole visa situation is a mess right now. Its been over 3 months since I applied for my UK visa & I'm still waiting.

Visa applicants with any link to Pakistan will need special clearance from the Home Ministry in Delhi before the visa is issued. For anyone else it shouldn't take this long.

Hard to tell... Others have mentioned typical reasons for visa applications to be referred back to New Delhi for additional checks - any sort of connections with Pakistan, disclosure of anything remotely connected to journalism, religious / missionary work, etc. Note, even volunteering seemingly innocuous information like "photography" as an interest or planned activity in India as a tourist can have your application flagged as a potential journalist. Also, do any of your parents/grandparents have any connection to (British) India, as in they were born in India or Pakistan, etc.? Any of these things can trigger additional checks. If you have any family connection to India, sometimes they do reject the application after review to tell you to re-apply for a different type of visa (X or Entry visa).

Besides links/visits to Pakistan, I�ve also had colleagues who had their visas take much longer to process than usual (1-6 months) for other links, such as links/visits to Iran, Palestine etc. This is despite them previously having travelled to India and acquiring visas easily. Luck of the draw unfortunately on the first person to process your application and whether they flag it, after which it disappears into a black hole. (I hope you got it in the end.)

What is it about India that makes us all want to go there despite the inhospitable and wretched government? PS. I am asking myself that question ...