The US Ambassador to India announces new visa slots for students

According to Mr. Eric Garcetti, the US Ambassador to India, the US Embassy in India intends to begin the next round of student visa applications in the coming weeks and aims to award more visas this year than last. On his first visit to Gujarat and Maharashtra, Mr. Garcetti stated that the embassy has assigned officials to work on the issue and that an effort is being made to shorten wait times for both students and first-time visitors.
“I think we will show that this year we will be able to go past the earlier numbers and get to an even higher number,” he said. “The President (Joe Biden) is very focused on this too. He has told me to reduce visa issuance time not just for students but also for first-time visitors and others.”
Garcetti also mentioned that in the last three months, the wait time has been brought down by 60% from December’s wait time. “In the coming year, we will bring the wait time down further,” he said. “My goal as an ambassador is to think of five years and 20 years from now.”
Garcetti said that just two billion dollars worth of trade existed between the US and India when he first visited at the age of 14.
Today, it is worth over $100 billion, and the US is India’s top trading partner. Defense cells and money were nonexistent back then, but now we are a key component of a shared plan to safeguard our citizens and defend the Indo-Pacific region as a whole, he further added.