Our Bureau
New York, NY
Recently, The Indian Consulate in New York has issued a warning to the Indian community about using unscrupulous agents for consular services. As per CGI, these agents have been found to overcharge and submit false documents, causing significant issues for applicants. The Consulate has streamlined its services and urges the community to use official channels for visa, passport, and other consular services.
Several instances have come to the notice of the Consulate General that various travel agents have overcharged applicants for assistance in getting Consular services(OCI, Visa, passport, Emergency Certificate, etc.). Often the fee charged is manifold higher than the fees stipulated by the Consulate for a particular Consular service and in many cases, false and baseless assurances of expeditious delivery of Consular services have also been given by such agents. Details of fees charged by the Consulate for various Consular services are available online and it may be noted that no additional fee is charged by the Consulate or VFS.
Moreover, the Consulate has also come across fake documents pertaining to identity, residential address, utility bills, etc. submitted by agents on applicants’ behalf, often without the knowledge of the applicants. This not only causes undue avoidable delay but is also a violation of prescribed Indian rules and puts the applicants on wrong side of the law in the US.
It has also been brought to the Consulate’s notice that a number of fake E-visa websites, claiming to provide E-visas services, are active on the internet. In order to mislead the applicants, some of these websites have created images and home page templates mimicking the Government of India’s websites. Applicants are requested to apply on the correct website for E-visa services.
The Consulate organizes an Open House on first Wednesday (10 am to 1 pm) and third Wednesday (2 pm to 5 pm) of every month. Applicants can walk in without prior appointment and meet the Consular Officers for any query they may have regarding Consular services.
Applicants are, therefore, requested to exercise extreme caution and avail the services directly through:
a) Consulate’s website – For Miscellaneous Services, PCC for non-Indian passport holders and Emergency Travel Documents.
b) VFS Global website, which is the authorized service provider for CGI New York – for all Visa, Passport, OCI, GEP, PCC for Indian passport holders and Renunciation of Indian citizenship.
