Indian visa centre
There have been reports in our dailies on miseries faced by Bangladeshi nationals while queuing up for filing application for Indian visa at the Indian Visa Application Centre (IVAC) managed by State Bank of India. I had the opportunity to stand in queue for applying for the Indian visa at IVAC in Gulshan. Here is my experience. I reached the place at 5:00am when it was quite dark.
I was directed by the police on duty to go towards Aarong and stand in queue there, about 600 yards away from IVAC. There in the darkness I found hundreds of people were already in queue since midnight. As the first ray of daylight broke in we were told by the police to put our hands on the shoulder of the person in front and march towards the lane where IVAC is housed. A policeman led the march.
It was like criminals being marched into prison. By then it was about 6:00am. Suddenly another group rushed in from nowhere. There was chaos and confusion followed by a mild lathi charge. In this melee I found a place behind about 500 people.
Lest I mention about the jostling in the queue, pestering by visa brokers, and hours of wait with no certainty of submitting a visa application but the ignominy that you go through is unbearable - just for the sake of getting a visa to go to India. Apparently IVAC is not concerned about what goes on outside their office.
My experience tells me the only way IVAC can ease the situation and bring some respectability is either by extending the time for receiving visa application by two more hours and delivery of visas at a later date or appoint sub agents as was done by the Indian High Commission before IVAC took over.
I would also like to draw the attention of our government to the fact that IVAC enjoys no diplomatic immunity and police should not be deployed at taxpayers expense to manage the crowd outside IVAC office.
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