New Indian visa centre in Dhaka

The State Bank of India is opening a new Indian Visa Application Centre (IVAC) in Dhaka from Jan 1.

The country's leading state-owned bank is its authorised visa processing agency in Bangladesh.

This third IVAC will be located at Dhanmondi centre, house 24 on Road 2, for handling applications seeking Indian visa.

IVAC also announced a number of new measures to handle the large volume of visa applications in a press release.

From now, medical emergency visa-seekers can submit applications on a “walk-in basis” without an appointment date. A special counter at the IVAC centre in Gulshan will handle them.

The visa processing fees for all applicants would be increased to Tk 600 from the current Tk 400.

Applicants must upload scanned photo with the online application form -- or else they will be considered incomplete.

The State Bank is the only authorised agent of the Indian High Commission in Dhaka for collecting visa applications through IVAC.

The IVACs are located in Gulshan and Motijheel in Dhaka and in Chittagong, Sylhet, Khulna and Rajshahi.

The press release has also warned visa-seekers to be vigilant about agents and middlemen and to report them to the nearest police station.

It requested all visa-seekers to submit “genuine, complete and accurate” documents.

They receive applications from Sunday to Thursday from 8am to 1pm and deliver passports from 3pm to 6pm.

[e-mail], [e-mail] and [e-mail] are the emails for any assistance.

The number of Bangladesh nationals seeking Indian visas is steadily rising amid widespread allegations of malpractices.

Many Bangladeshis complain that when they apply online, they don’t get an appointment unless they pay up some local agencies.

Once they do that, the appointments are promptly available, many visa-seekers said.

The money collected by the local agencies are allegedly shared with officials dealing with visas in the Indian High Commission.

Some allege they have paid up to TK 10,000 to secure an Indian visa through local agencies. They masquerade as tour operators or travel agents but much of their income comes from 'handling' Indian visa-seekers.

A veteran journalist who recently visited India says he paid up TK 3,000 to a travel agent for an Indian visa.

"It was an emergency," he said but did not wish to be named. “I may need Indian visas again, so can’t upset anyone there."

A leading businessman told bdnews24.com that he 'had to run around for more than a week' to get his Indian visa.

"I applied online but could not get an appointment for three days. I then spoke to someone in the high commission and he asked me to go over," said the businessman, but again on condition of anonymity.

"It took real high level intervention to get my visa."

Agencies dealing with Indian visa-seekers illegally say they are still in business because of “our links with high commission insiders'.

"We share what visa seekers pay us with these officials," said an employee of a tour and travel agency.

But he insisted we provide a 'speedy service that is valued by the visa-seekers'.

"Or else they will have to wait long because of the sheer volume of applications that has to be handled."

The Indian High Commission says none of its staff were involved in the malpractices over the Indian visas.

A High Commission official said local touts and agents are manipulating the system.

"There is nothing anyone can do about it, because of the low internet penetration in this country. We cannot do anything about it in a foreign country," he said.

He however said that the online visa processing system was not compromised. "The manipulation is manual at the user end."