India Visa Questions

[sojourner]

I am of Indian origin and have held an Indian passport. I became a US Citizen by naturalization in 1987. I do not have my last Indian passport with me.

I last traveled to India in 1994 using my American passport. I am planning another trip to India -- the travel will take place in about four months.

1. I am wondering whether I should apply for the OCI card.

2. If the paperwork for a tourist visa is easier than the OCI card, I will apply for the 10 year tourist visa instead.

3. What is the difference between a surrender certificate and a renunciation certificate? Which all of these do I need for the OCI card and the 10 year tourist visa?

4. I am also wondering whether I should use a third party expediter like ItsEasy.

5. My CKGS jurisdiction is Chicago.

Thanks.

[CKGS Visa Services]

Dear Applicant,

We request you to kindly share your query and contact details to [email protected] to better assist you.

Please share the link of this post in your email.

Regards,
CKGS USA Team.

[sojourner]

Dear Applicant,

We request you to kindly share your query and contact details to [email protected] to better assist you.

Please share the link of this post in your email.

Regards,
CKGS USA Team.

I am glad that the CKGS USA Team is monitoring this forum. I have been in touch with [email protected]. I will share the link to this post in my next email.

I asked my question here so that I can directly hear from people who have gone through a similar experience.

I do have some more questions at the moment. I will be happy to ask them to the above email address also.

It is clear to me that I need to go to the Chicago Consulate and have them verify my supporting documents for a ‘Deemed Surrender Indian Citizenship Certificate’. (My wife got this by mail in 2012 when she applied for an Indian tourist visa.)

1. Do I need to make an appointment at the consulate in order to this or can I just walk in?

2. When I do this, will I get the ‘Deemed Surrender Indian Citizenship Certificate’ then itself or will it be mailed to me later?

3. I am interested in applying for a 10 year tourist visa. I see online that I can present my supporting documents for deemed surrender verification "along with visa application". Should I generate the visa application on the CKGS site, print it, and take it with me?

4. Do I pay the fees in person at the embassy or do I pay on the CKGS Website?

5. How long should I plan on spending at the embassy? I am 68 years old, have some health problems, may take the train from Indiana, and thus need to plan my schedule.

6. My wife is also applying for a 10 year tourist visa. When I come for the verification, can we bring her visa application too?

Thanks. Your answers will help me plan our trip to the Consulate better. Have a great day.

[sojourner]

Suggestions for Improvement

Hi CKGS Visa Services,

I was able to get my visa in a short period of time -- I am very happy about that.

Having gone through the process, I have several suggestions for improvement. Please contact me if your are interested. Thanks.

Sojourner

[sojourner]

CKGS Visa Services,

1. For a lot of posts you respond with "We request you to kindly share your query and contact details to [email protected] to better assist you. Please share the link of this post in your email." This does NOT help at all. Can you (or someone else in the CKGS Team) not respond to the question here itself?

2. Also, most of the time, the answers provided by [email protected] is useless and sometimes wrong.

3. if someone writes to [email protected], the following is the standard reply they get:

**** **** **** **** **** ***
Dear
Thank you for contacting CKGS.
To register your Enquiry / Feedback / Complaint with us, please click on www.in.ckgs.us/feedback and submit your query.
Our Customer Service Team will respond to you within 24hours.
To Track the status of your application, please click on www.in.ckgs.us/trackandtrace
Or call our Call Center on 516-206-1483 / 646-589-0088 (Monday to Friday between 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM ET except Holidays)
To ensure that you receive our alerts / updates, add [email protected] to your White list / Approved / Safe Senders list. Please note this is an auto-generated email. Kindly do not reply to this email.
Kind Regards,

CKGS Customer Service Team

**** **** **** **** **** ***

In other words, writing to [email protected] achieves nothing.

Sojourner

[ProNRI]

CKGS is a hogwash!

CKGS Visa Services,

1. For a lot of posts you respond with "We request you to kindly share your query and contact details to [email protected] to better assist you. Please share the link of this post in your email." This does NOT help at all. Can you (or someone else in the CKGS Team) not respond to the question here itself?

2. Also, most of the time, the answers provided by [email protected] is useless and sometimes wrong.

3. if someone writes to [email protected], the following is the standard reply they get:

**** **** **** **** **** ***
Dear
Thank you for contacting CKGS.
To register your Enquiry / Feedback / Complaint with us, please click on www.in.ckgs.us/feedback and submit your query.
Our Customer Service Team will respond to you within 24hours.
To Track the status of your application, please click on www.in.ckgs.us/trackandtrace
Or call our Call Center on 516-206-1483 / 646-589-0088 (Monday to Friday between 9.00 AM to 9.00 PM ET except Holidays)
To ensure that you receive our alerts / updates, add [email protected] to your White list / Approved / Safe Senders list. Please note this is an auto-generated email. Kindly do not reply to this email.
Kind Regards,

CKGS Customer Service Team

**** **** **** **** **** ***

In other words, writing to [email protected] achieves nothing.

Sojourner

CKGS is so lame and useless that it pisses me off. Try to avoid dealing with them.

[sojourner]

CKGS is Quite Efficient in Person

CKGS is so lame and useless that it pisses me off. Try to avoid dealing with them.

There is no way one can avoid dealing with them :-)

More importantly, they seem to do several things very well, in their US offices. When you submit an application in person, they give an estimated time for completion. In our case, they were spot on. They complete their review very quickly and move papers to the Consulate very quickly. They also pick up the papers from the Consulate very quickly and ship them very quickly. When I was there, if an agent saw someone waiting, he asked the how he could help. They also have a computer for use by emergency applicants and a place for taking photographs. The place was not mobbed and the small queue moved very quickly. All these are almost incredible for the interface to a government office.

I also called their Call Center in India -- they took care of a minor problem rather well. (They promised to send me an email when the problem was resolved -- they never did this.)

I also considered visa expediters -- they wouldn't take up cases that require applying for renunciation.

Their email answers (via their feedback form) are close to completely useless. The agents seem to be afraid of interpreting rules especially in writing.

Their Web site can and should be be improved. For instance, if one wants to apply for a transfer of visa from an expired passport to a new passport, one still has to fill their applying for a new visa widget. Why not a simpler widget for this case?

And their checklists lists items that turn out to be not necessary -- an example is parents' Indian passports when applying for a visa. If this is only conditionally necessary, why not point out the conditions clearly?

Someone in one of the posts here recommended getting an evisa at the airport since the procedure is easier. I seriously thought about this and decided against this for this reason: If there is a problem, I would like to know in the US itself, rather than at the airport after flying for 20 hours.

Overall though, I am glad that I don't have to deal with visa issues for quite a while :-)

[ProNRI]

CKGS functioanality is a misfit for this day and age!

There is no way one can avoid dealing with them :-)

More importantly, they seem to do several things very well, in their US offices. When you submit an application in person, they give an estimated time for completion. In our case, they were spot on. They complete their review very quickly and move papers to the Consulate very quickly. They also pick up the papers from the Consulate very quickly and ship them very quickly. When I was there, if an agent saw someone waiting, he asked the how he could help. They also have a computer for use by emergency applicants and a place for taking photographs. The place was not mobbed and the small queue moved very quickly. All these are almost incredible for the interface to a government office.

I also called their Call Center in India -- they took care of a minor problem rather well. (They promised to send me an email when the problem was resolved -- they never did this.)

I also considered visa expediters -- they wouldn't take up cases that require applying for renunciation.

Their email answers (via their feedback form) are close to completely useless. The agents seem to be afraid of interpreting rules especially in writing.

Their Web site can and should be be improved. For instance, if one wants to apply for a transfer of visa from an expired passport to a new passport, one still has to fill their applying for a new visa widget. Why not a simpler widget for this case?

And their checklists lists items that turn out to be not necessary -- an example is parents' Indian passports when applying for a visa. If this is only conditionally necessary, why not point out the conditions clearly?

Someone in one of the posts here recommended getting an evisa at the airport since the procedure is easier. I seriously thought about this and decided against this for this reason: If there is a problem, I would like to know in the US itself, rather than at the airport after flying for 20 hours.

Overall though, I am glad that I don't have to deal with visa issues for quite a while :-)

Even from what I read here, it is clear that CKGS "functionality" is a misfit for this day and age when every other agency is going towards making life easier, CKGS offers nothing but heartburn and headache! Whoever designed the on-line application for OCI reissue must have been either drunk or pathetically bored! There was no thinking applied behind that process. Shamefully, they have the excuse of being the agency that has no authority on rules, and the actual authorities (embassies of India) don't care about the pains that NRIs have to go through so frequently!

[daggit]

Even from what I read here, it is clear that CKGS "functionality" is a misfit for this day and age when every other agency is going towards making life easier, CKGS offers nothing but heartburn and headache! Whoever designed the on-line application for OCI reissue must have been either drunk or pathetically bored! There was no thinking applied behind that process. Shamefully, they have the excuse of being the agency that has no authority on rules, and the actual authorities (embassies of India) don't care about the pains that NRIs have to go through so frequently!

From what's been blogged and written online for years, outsourced visa firms tend to be apathetic to their customers. There is hardly any accountability, because their contract is set for a period of time. The lowest bidders get these contracts, so in a way you get what you pay for.

And, those embassy consular staff aren't necessarily at the embassy to 'help you'. Getting to the US is a dream come true for many staff, and a majority of their time is spent looking for ways to either settle in the US, or to find a way for their family to settle in the US. You're mistaken if you believe embassy staff are primarily here to help you.