The US Embassy on Monday announced opening an additional 2.5 lakh visa appointments for Indian travellers, including tourists, skilled workers and students.
The announcement will benefit those applying for tourists, skilled workers and student visas; and will help the applicants take timely interviews.
The announcement comes even as the US Mission to India already surpassed 10 lakh non-immigrant visa applications for the second consecutive year.
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"The recently released new slots will help hundreds of thousands of Indian applicants take timely interviews, facilitating the travel which is the backbone of the people-to-people ties that underpin the U.S.-India relationship," a statement of the US Embassy in India said on Monday.
The embassy further said that over 1.2 million Indians have travelled to the United States this year till date, a 35 per cent surge than in 2023.
At least six million Indians already have a nonimmigrant visa to visit the United States, and each day, the Mission issues thousands more, the statement added.
"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," the statement quoted US Ambassador to India Eric Garcetti as saying.
In 2023, the US issued over 1.4 lakh student visas to Indians, which is more than in any other country in the world, also setting a record for the third year in a row, according to the figures released by the US Embassy and Consulates in India earlier this year.