Getting Indian Tourist visa in The Stans/UAE/Oman/Turkey

[Teddy B]

Hello all,

doing a trip around The Stans [Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan], and plan to go onto India afterwards [via UAE/Oman]. I need to get a Tourist visa [UK citizen] but at present the Indian government are not allowing e-visas for UK, only the traditional F2F paper ones. Has anyone recent experience of applying for/gaining a visa via the Indian embassies in any of The Stans/UAE'Oman/Turkey; the last country is an option I am also considering.

Thanks

[Matt]

Hi Teddy

We’re UK citizens and are just about to start the process for applying for paper visas for India in Tashkent. We’re hoping to submit our documents tomorrow.

Let us know if you found any tips! We’ll let you know how it goes.

Thanks

Matt

[Teddy B]

Hi Matt,

the only 'tips' that I found are:

1. Read the application rules and apply them 'to the letter' i.e. don't give them a simple excuse to invalidate your application because you didn't supply a photo of the correct size.

2. Have a good reason for not applying in your home country i.e. you will be visiting many countries/have much time before visiting India and so the time restrictions meant you needed to apply whilst 'on the road'.

I was hoping that the UK would be included with the other 156 countries when the e-visa was reinstated, but it wasn't due to a 'tit for tat' issue between the UK/Indian governments; similar to why 'we' pay so much more for a visa than other nations.

Keep me posted, as if you are successful I may try to apply at the same Embassy as you.

Cheers.

[Matt]

A quick (and disappointing) update.

We took our paper visa application forms to the Tashkent Indian Consulate today. First they said that we needed an appointment, but the next available appointment was in a month. Someone in the queue then said we should book an appointment for next month and then go back to the Consulate to see if they’ll deal with our application today. This seemed to work.

We eventually managed to speak to someone via the phone at the security booth. He said we should apply for an eVisa, I explained that an eVisa wasn’t an option for UK citizens. He then said that they can only process applications from individuals who have been resident in Uzbekistan for a minimum of two years. He was quite firm about not processing out applications.

After that we went to the UK Embassy in Tashkent to see if they had any solutions, we’re still waiting to hear back, but not optimistic. We’re also going to try the Indian embassy in London by email / phone too.

[Duncan Wilson]

I wish you luck, but the Indian High Commission in London doesn't handle tourist visa applications. This is outsourced to a private company and when I contacted them recently they stated that all applicants must make an appointment and visit in person.

[Teddy B]

Thanks Matt,

If the Covid nonsense wasn't enough, we have to mess around with this as well!...don't think I will bother with the IHC Tashkent then!

Regarding London, as Duncan above points out the process is outsourced to VFSGlobal [https://services.vfsglobal.com/gbr/en/ind/apply-visa], and when I was investigating recently they were quoting delays of 5-6 weeks minimum, hence why a) I didn't book a flight to India, and b) why I couldn't apply as I had already booked some other flights from London onwards, and so needed my passport in-hand, not sitting in the London Indian visa centre waiting for someone to process it!

Not sure of your route, but could you try one of the other 'Stans' or fly into UAE [cheap gateway into India for flights] and try there?

[Matt]

Thanks for the extra info - sounds like London isn’t the way to go.

We called the Indian Consulars in Bishkek and Almaty and explained that we had been unable to apply for an Indian tourist visa in London. To our surprised both said that we should come to the Consular for an interview with the consular and bring our application and supporting documents. Paper tourist visas can be processed next day.

We should be in Bishkek in 10 days so will speak to the Consular there and if we don’t have success try Almaty. Who knows, but sounds a bit more positive that earlier in the week.

[Teddy B]

Hi Matt,

that sounds more promising. Please keep me posted with how you get on/any tips or pointers, as it looks as we are doing the same trip except I am 2 months behind you!

[Matt]

Good news, we’ve just got our India tourist visas in Bishkek!

Our process was:
1. We emailed the consular ([email protected]) a week or two before we applied explaining why we couldn’t apply for a visa in London and asking if we could come to the Consular. We didn’t get a response to our email, but when we arrived, the Consular asked if we were the ones who had emailed, so they had clearly read the email and were aware that we were coming.
2. We filled in the application form online, booked an appointment at the Consular and printed off the application form. Appointments were available the next working day. You need a high quality photo (2 “ x 2”) for the application which will be used in your visa. We took photos on our phones and then went to a photo print shop in Bishkek for printing.
3. At the appointment, we got a bit of a lecture about how we should apply in London because it’s a lot easier that way, that he would need to seek permission for our application and next time we should apply in our home country. That said, the Consular seemed happy to process our application and didn’t appear too interested why we hadn’t applied in London (we did try to explain). The rule seems to be that you should apply from your home country or be resident in the country which you are applying from for two years, but they will process applications on a discretionary basis.
4. With our application we provided our original passports, photocopies of our passports and banks statements showing we had funds to financially support our trip through India. We didn’t have any flights booked which didn’t seem to matter (online it says you should bring evidence of your return flights to support the visa application).
5. The Consular then discussed how many entries into India we required and how long we needed the visa for. In the application had requested multiple entry and a 1 month tourist visa. The consular said it would be safer to have 3 months and 3 entries in case we had any problems when we arrived, so he changed our application, which we were fine with.
6. We then paid the fee which was just under 17,000 som per person (about $215 per person). It was a lot more than we expected and afterwards wondered whether a 1 month visa would have been cheaper or if there had been some funny business. But we got a receipt and concluded that it was just an expensive process.
6. We then left our passports, applications and supporting documents and we told to return the next day. We picked up the passports the next working day at 10am with our tourist visas pasted into our passports.

So not cheap, but otherwise quick and straight forward.

Good luck!

We’re flying to India on Thursday which will be the end our cycling in Central Asia. A big shout out to the Caravanistan website and forum, we would have really struggled to navigate Central Asia without it.

[Teddy B]

Hi Matt,

not sure you will pick this up, but thanks for the update.

As for cost, if you are a UK national its quite expensive anyway; visa is usually ~£135 PLUS processing fees [maybe they had to send some faxes etc to UK or India?]. Have fun in India, and who know I may even 'bump' into you...stranger things have happened before!

Question for the forum, has anyone got the Indian visa in Istanbul or Ankara?