The United States embassy in India has announced that it has opened additional 250,000 visa appointments for Indian travellers. These include skilled workers, tourists and students. The fresh announcement is likely to help visa-seekers to appear for interviews in timely manner.
The US embassy has taken to social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to make the announcement. In its post, US mission said that it has already 'surpassed nonimmigrant visa applications for second consecutive year.
As reported by the news agency ANI, six million Indians already hold nonimmigrant US visa and the US mission issues thousands daily.
"Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Joe Biden set an ambitious goal to improve and expedite the visa process and I'm 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," said Eric Garcetti, the US ambassador to India recently.
Record number of Indians to the US
There are high chances that current calendar year would see record number of Indians travelling to the US. Last year 17.6 lakh Indians went to US. This year, 15.5 lakh Indians have traveled to the US in first eight months alone. It is expected that this year's figure will match or surpass last year's in September.
“India-US relations have never been better and people to people ties represent that. In Jan-Aug 2024, India has emerged as the second largest overseas source market of international visitors to the US,” said Jonathan M Heimer minister counsellor for commercial affairs in the US Embassy, Delhi. He was quoted by The Times of India.
