LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Consulate must improve visa service

In recent times I have encountered considerable dissatisfaction from prospective Australian visitors to India over the outsourcing of India Travel visas. The outsourcing of a service would normally be expected to provided an improved service. In the case of India Visas, compared with the service previously offered by the Consulate-General in Sydney, there has been a deterioration.

1. In time taken,

2. In customer service

3. In cost - we now pay the visa fee plus a service fee!

Let’s examine the time it takes. The service provider is VFS Services, located at 64 Clarence Street, Sydney, and their website is currently quoting: “on an average, 7-9 working days (check application status prior to collection). Most visas for Australian nationals and permanent residents of Australia would be processed with in 7 working days after submission of application except as detailed below”.

Regarding Customer Service, I have received complaints from prospective visitors about unhelpful VFS staff who don’t have answers. Considering India is spending significant sums to entice tourists to visit, that delay is a turnoff and must impact on visiting numbers. Why is India spending all that money to entice visitors and then making it so hard to go there?

In January this year I was in Sri Lanka (where a visa is issued on entry without cost) and could not help but read in the Colombo Daily News, in the “India Republic Day Supplement” on 26th January, 2010 a special item on India Visa Services. The Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, Mr Ashok K Kantha, boasted that from “January 2010, Sri Lankan nationals can obtain their visas within 2-3 days of application”.

The same service provider VFS Global is operating in Colombo, so why the significant difference in the time it takes to issue the visa?

Hartley Anderson Neutral Bay NSW.

Police Commissioner, or deputy premier?

There is something quite creepy, and seriously undemocratic, about the way Brumby uses Overland as a virtual uniformed cabinet minister, a kind of unelected deputy premier.

Hardly a Victorian has heard of the Police Minister or Attorney-General, but Overland is everywhere in the media extolling the virtues of Victoria’s police policies - a very dysfunctional element of a very dysfunctional government.

Shyam Adhikari

Glen Waverley VIC