Wanted to post about my experience with the Indian Visa Service Centre. I had read so many bad reviews about the Indian Visa process. The website was flawed with all kinds of errors but not too difficult, the main problem is communication if you are unsure of something theres no real way to contact them. Travelled 2.5 hours to a major Indian visa service centre in Australia run by VFSGlobal. We were pleasantly surprised we only had to wait about 30 minutes to lodge our application and wasnt so bad like described online! Was cleared and ready within 3 days.
Unfortunately was not that lucky picking the passports up! Arrived at the scheduled pickup time and ended up waiting around 2 hours, standing as the place was so full. There was no staff to talk to as all were busy and most were unsure if they had taken the right ticket, which you must take to see someone.
Finally my name was called and I had to wait another 30 minutes, the clerk finally comes to the desk with a huge stack of envelopes placed on his desk and starts announcing names. Everyone came running up at once and grabbed an envelope with the passports and receipt of proof of pickup in! I was surprised there was no signature needed, then realised my envelope had my first and middle name right, but not the surname! I quickly told them and they didnt have my real passport. I thought it might just be a misprint. Everyone else had left as they seemed in a hurry. Thankfully the guy given my passport who happened to have the same middle and last names came rushing back and had checked!
I feel this system was a pretty bad security breach for such an important document like a passport. There was no proof at all needed, so anyone could in reality could go in from the street and get one if they wanted to!
Ive applied for visas and had to hand my passport in in various countries but ive never experienced this before.
The clerk was apologetic, and I understand how it happened, I dont really blame him but the system seems kind-of crazy for an important document like a passport which is hard to replace, implicating travel plans too.
Anyone who is applying for an Indian visa I advise just to allow lots of time on pickup and application days, and check to make sure someone else doesn't grab your passport!
Nothing new here.