Embassy New Delhi, India and Constituent Posts - OIG - US ...

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consular leadership in India to implement the highest level of services now so that, as NIV
workload continues to grow, the system will run smoothly from the start.
Recommendation 30: The Bureau of Consular Affairs, in coordination with Embassy New
Delhi, should designate the highest level of services under the Global Support Strategy contract
for Mission India, to include off-site centers where visa applicants submit their documents and
are fingerprinted. (Action: CA, in coordination with Embassy New Delhi)
Mission India has three states that generate the largest number of NIV applicants apart
from the five cities where the consulates general are located. These states are Gujarat in
Mumbai’s consular district; Punjab in New Delhi’s consular district; and Karnataka in Chennai’s
consular district. If CA requires the contractor to establish off-site processing centers in the
vicinity of the capitals of those states (Ahmedabad, Gujarat; Chandigarh, Punjab; and Bangalore,
Karnataka), visa applicants would do their initial processing close to home and then make one
visit to the consulate general where they have an appointment. The embassy could use EFMs to
make regular visits to monitor activities at the centers.
Recommendation 31: The Bureau of Consular Affairs, in coordination with Embassy New
Delhi, should establish off-site visa processing centers in the states of Gujarat, Punjab, and
Karnataka under the Global Support Services contract and support Embassy New Delhi in hiring
eligible family members to travel to these centers on a regular basis to monitor their activities.
(Action: CA, in coordination with Embassy New Delhi)
Consular Agencies
One way to provide better service to American citizens and extend consular outreach is to
establish consular agencies where there are large populations of Americans. Consulate General
Chennai proposed a consular agency for Bangalore, which has one of the largest populations of
Americans in India outside the five cities where the consulates general are already located.
Embassy leadership opted instead to increase the amount of time to 1 week a month that an
officer and an LE staff member from Chennai’s ACS unit spend in Bangalore to provide these
services, which include taking applications for passports and consular reports of birth. The main
issue with this solution is that the employees from Chennai have to use the facilities of the
Foreign Commercial Service in Bangalore, and it is an open question of how long this
arrangement will prove satisfactory.
Immigrant Visa Consolidation
Three consulates general in India (New Delhi, Mumbai, and Chennai) together process
more than 41,000 IVs annually. The Department has consolidated IV processing at one post in
almost all countries where there are multiple posts. Mission India previously considered
centralizing IV processing in two locations, Mumbai and New Delhi, but pulled back from this
step when it became clear that the facilities in neither location could handle the increased
workload. In the interim, Consulate General Kolkata ceased all IV processing early in 2011, and
Consulate General Hyderabad does not take any IV applications.
The OIG team believes the time has come to consolidate IV processing in India. There
are several advantages to consolidation, including greater efficiencies of operation, consistency
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