KowshikBlog

I am writing to share my experience on Indian tourist visa securing practice in Dhaka. The visa center is named “Indian Visa Application Center” located at the building of State Bank of India. Holding address of the location is House No. 12, Road No. 137, Gulshan-1. You may easily pick the place if you know Shooting Complex at Gulshan-1. Huge crowd will be visible to the first sight and the queue begins from the dawn. Finding a place in the queue is simply nightmare and as application receiving hour is till 12 noon – you may not get your face to appear before the application receiving desk in the same day. Especially during the festive occasions of eid, puja – this is simply wastage of time.

Indian Visa Application Center at Gulshan, Dhaka

To get off the crowd – an illegal way out is well practiced there. It is called “VIP line” and costing may vary from 1200 to 1500 taka for single entry into the center. It works through long distant signal sent by a policeman or embassy staff engaged for queue management and you have to be intelligent enough to read their gesture when to forward and how to act like a VIP. I have observed that a well composed team works there and I strongly doubt the percentage of the bribes is proportionately shared among all the staff in the embassy from Gatekeeper to Ambassador. Please note that the Indian Embassy is the ever busiest embassy in the country as Bangladesh and West Bengal, India has the common ethnic identity and their relatives live scattered in two countries.

Now you entered in the building crossing a tiny space and found another place in a u-shape line. A G4 security person will verify your documents and give you feedback if any incomplete documents are there. In that case you have to pause your journey there and after filling with the missing info/documents the entering procedure is to be repeated from the beginning.

The people usually bounced back from there for the following reasons:

• Lack of two references in India and their contact info;
• Lack of two references in Bangladesh and their contact info;
• Without authorization letter – this is applicable only for official visa application (i.e. if someone else drops application on behalf of you);
• Authorized person is not a first blood contact – no authorization is needed if you are a first blood relative;
• Applicant’s name discrepancy in passport and application (in most of the cases, national ID, Passport and other identical documents have name mismatch); and
• Carrying bag, luggage etc., to get in you have to be with your clothes only.

Most of the applicants are aged and they came from rural area on medical ground. The newly adopted rules and regulations are not yet familiar to them and as a result their harassment is limitless. If the G4 finds your paper okay – you will get a token showing a number of your turn. After all of these happenings you will find a place to rest on a chair for 30 to 45 minutes. The next course of action includes appointment with a desk officer, submission of 200 taka for one applicant, again with desk officer for clarifying little information presented in the application form. You may apply for double entry visa if the duration of staying in India exceeds one month. Tourist visa is largely welcomed and bank endorsement from “State Bank of India” and air-ticket from Indian Airlines further expedites the visa process. In that case you can drop your passport with necessary papers to an Indian airline. They will arrange your visa on behalf of you – and you can avoid all these bullshits at the embassy.

To sum up the process I made some tips how you can get ensured for an Indian tourist visa:-

• Collect the visa application form from the web, a pdf file is available there. Use your google hand to find the link;
• Complete the form using typewriting option from pdf (shut the mouth of the embassy staff from finding any hand writing errors);
• Write two Indian references (collect prior to the planning of visit from your friend or relatives living in India);
• Write the name of the hotel or relative’s address in India where you are going to stay, don’t forget to mention phone numbers, etc.;
• Get you bank endorsement from State Bank of India. You have to buy 150 dollar to get the endorsement in your passport. Attach the original copy of the endorsement certificate with your application;
• Attach photocopy of you national ID, phone/telephone bill or ward commissioner’s certificate as evidence of domicile, visiting card and office ID card. Don’t forget to attest the photocopies by yourself;
• Attach photocopies of 1-7 pages of the passport;
• Attach two copy passport size photographs; and
• Get your air-ticket from an Indian airway and submit to them, within a week you will get your visa.

My experience at Indian embassy is awesome. Scene of long standing people, most of them are sick and aged, is stunning. Moreover the crowd itself is a force for environment degradation to the adjacent roads. The residents too repeatedly appeal to the government to withdraw the center from Gulshan. Possibly the gaze of irritated residents has been noticed.  Moving out from Gulshan has been a thought of the city corporation lately. But where will  it be relocated?

Protest at Banani Against Indian Visa Center

Today while I was passing through Banani Road No. 11, found few banners hanging in the road-roof. It says, “Indian visa center should not be allowed at Banani, Environment of Banani should not be destroyed”.  After construction of Banani 11 Bridge passing to Gulshan, the area already turned into a trafic catastrophic zone. Now imagine “Indian visa application center” is there! Oh No! We have to forget Banani forever.