This initiative follows Prime Minister Modi's recent visit to the US with an aim to strengthen US-India relations.
On Monday, the US Mission to India announced the addition of 250,000 new visa appointment slots for Indians. The recent development comes a couple of days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s US visit, where he held meetings with President Joe Biden. With the new slots, Indian travellers can now apply for US visas under various categories including tourists, skilled workers, and students.
An official post shared by the US Embassy in India read as, “The new slots will help hundreds of thousands of Indian applicants take timely interviews, facilitating the travel which is the backbone of the people-to-people ties that underpin the US-India relationship. The US Mission to India has already surpassed one million non-immigrant visa applications for the second consecutive year. We are now focused on bringing families together, connecting businesses and facilitating tourism.”
Meanwhile, it is believed that more than 1.2 million Indians have travelled to the United States in 2024 (year to date), which is a 35% increase over the same time frame last year. In fact, around six million Indians already have a nonimmigrant visa for the US, and it continues to increase.
During his US visit for the Quad summit, PM Modi held bilateral talks with President Joe Biden, and the two leaders had a discussion about the US-India Comprehensive Global and Strategic Partnership. Both Modi and Biden aim to “forge deeper bonds” between the two countries.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden set an ambitious goal to improve and expedite the visa process and I am proud to say that we have delivered on that promise. Our consular teams at the embassy and four consulates work tirelessly to ensure that we meet the surging demand," US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti said in a statement.
Not just the additional slots, the US visa processing time has also been cut down by more than 75% over the past two years. While the average earlier was 1000 days, it has now been reduced to a manageable 250 days across India by January.
It cannot go unnoticed that Indians make for the largest group of international graduate students in the US, and cover up more than a quarter of the over one million foreign students that apply for studies in the United States Of America. The US remains a preferable place for Indian students along with Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia.
In 2023 itself, the US issued over 1.4 lakh student visas to Indians. The number is more than any other country in the world, and it was a record for a third year in a row.
Not just the US, Australia too has plans to offer up to 1,000 work and holiday visas to Indians each year from October 1. Under the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (AI-ECTA), Indians between 18-30 years of age can apply for a one-year visa to work, study, and travel across Australia.
