Slow India eVisa ETA processing
 

Hi all,

what is going on with the eVisa processing? I am now waiting for 10 days on my new business eVisa ETA... last couple of times it was processed within 24hrs. Also NONE of the phone numbers work and no reply to mails. Need to travel on Friday, not getting any update is kind of unnerving. Anyone got any insights or hint whom to reach out to?

Thanks!

Friday, nothing. No reaction. Just silence. :(

That is really werid. Weird enough that the eVisa website is still a pice of garbage and paying the fees in the first try like winning the lottery. But at least so far, it worked out to get a visa in reasonable time.

What does the status page say about your application? They normally prioritize pax who are travelling shortly...

The BoI helpdesk in Delhi is usually staffed and has access to the same systems:

https://boi.gov.in/boi/public/pages/...6-0011f25b2be6

I just arrived in Delhi yesterday and I must say the entire eVisa process was frustrating.

I applied for 2 at the same time. myself and mrs. One arrived in 4 working days the other arrived in 6 working days. Both were very vanilla and same nationalities.

Both lodgements were affected by multiple website crashes and having to re-enter data. Some check boxes reverted to defaults like the hard to spot box stating your parents were Pakistani which I believe could derail an application.

One application crashed at the payment page. The payment went through to my bank, the website says it hadn't been paid, so I resign myself to paying again, but it wouldn't let me because it said it had already been paid! I ended up using the third payment gateway option (and got better exchange rates) so my wife's visa was effectively paid for twice. The website assures me there is a thorough reconciliation process but I've written off that second payment.

Emails to the help desk just returned answers that the visa was being processed and wait. Calls to the help desk got cut off several times. My local consulate and high commission voice mail boxes were full. All this despite the evisa website stating visa process takes from 1 to 3 business days.

It's like they're intentionally trying to discourage tourists. At the same time I applied for visas for Laos and by comparison the website was a joy to use, the information requested was far simpler, and apart from a spam email trying to sell me a sim card the process was a pleasure by comparison to the Indian one.

As a data point I entered Delhi using the business class queue, but as we walked further (after entry) I saw the eVisa queues were much shorter and there were more counters to choose from.

Good luck with your visa.

The official number (+91 82 7808 7808) just connects to a usless bot which tell you exactly the same. The BoI number doesn't connect all. Tried multiple times, not even colleagues in India were able to dial that number and get someone on the line.

For a country with so many IT professionals it should be soooooo easy to fix the website and their process. How hard can it be?

Presumably those first-class IT professionals aren't interested in a government salary.

I have a friend visiting from the US next week. He applied for his eVisa in mid November & finally got it a couple of days ago. Took about 20 days.

My ETA just came in. No comments or anything. Overall 15 days, so ~10 business days for processing. In general that is acceptable assuming they would clearly say this... but the lack of information and broken down website and payment gateway... that is real trouble,.

It seems like the USA is rejecting more Indian tourist visas, so GOI might be engaging in retaliation, or at least doing more vetting of applicants.

In the past I always received my e-visa within 24 hours.

Not everyone on FT is a US citizen ;)

True, but Germany is also pretty nasty with issuing visa to Indian nationals. Can't count how many time the visa for our business partners were just plainly denied. No idea why. Even with letters of guarantees, deposits placed, and the applicant having US, CA and UK visa in their passports. It is so ridiculous.

Talked to a former colleague who has a friend working in BoI. It looks like they switched to manual processing for ALL eVisa ETAs. In the past a lot were automatically approved, especially the 30 day tourist visa. And now, for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year the amount of visa requests spiked a lot. They are just backlogged as it seems.

But the least they could do: Put a banner on the website: Takes longer folks! Count on at least 15 days... if quicker than that, be happy!

Are tourist evisas usually faster? It took me hours to complete that application...My trip is in two weeks.

The long delays at year-end seem to have been eliminated. Two or three days in most cases often just a day. If you did the form right . . .