INDIANANGLER

Guys here's a fun read!

http://www.fishingmagic.com/news/articl ... 57/v/1/sp/

Bops

I never thought I'd live to see the words "I made the pilgrimage to Birmingham" written without irony.

I live in the city and believe me, we don't see many pilgrims....

Seriously though if anyone is thinking of travelling to India from the UK, the CGI in birmingham only issues 200 visas a day and although they open at 9, anyone joining the que after 8.20 is unlikely to get a visa.
Its common to see people arrive at 9am after having driven 200 miles get turned away at the door and you just have to feel for them.
Queing to get your application in is likely to exceed 3 hours and queing to pick up your endorsed passport in the afternoon is likely to exceed 2 hours.

Unless you actually live in the city, do yourself a favour and download the application from the CGI website and use the option of applying for your via by post. I'll cost you an extra couple of quid and take a few days but it's a lot less hassle.
To be honest, I work 10 minutes from the consular office and my next visa appication will be by post - it really is that bad.

Edit: Heres the section of the CGI website relating to visa's. http://www.cgibirmingham.org/visas.htm

Hi Ken

With no disrespect meant . its the same for "us Indians " here when we need to apply for a visa to the UK or any other Schengen country - the odd one out being the Swiss who wil grant upto 1300 visa's in a day from Mumbai --- At least you guys dont get your visa rejected at the Indian Embassy the way the Indian gets rejected here at the UK and Schengen ... with no refund of the fees in case you do get " rejected " and the documentation that anyone coming ot India is Zero whereas " Us Indians" have to provide documenatation that short of looking up our ass .. so I guess its an even playing field.

Ken I'm glad I read your post!

I'm driving down to Birmingham next Friday to get my visa. I was led to believe that there is very little demand for visas at this time of the year, so it's unlikely that 200 people would want them in one day.

I take it that's incorrect then?

Fred. Nothing was intended as a dig. Just some info for anyone planning on making a "pilgrimage" !

Ricco. Not sure about this time of year but if you're driving down, do yourself a favour and turn up about eight. If there isn't a que, there's a cafe at the bottom of the road where you can get a coffee and a sandwich.

Hi Ken

I agree on the post and Visa. When Dickie and I went on the Kaveri trip in this article; it ended up being an all dayer. It was pretty close on us not getting one also - never again!!!

So, you live in Birmingham Ken? I live in Worcester, and Dickie in Leamington Spa. What do you fish for in this county? Barbel? The severn is fishing it's head off, and the banks are empty because of the floods.

P.S are you the Ken that Steve fished with this year?

Thansks

Jim

The Indian Consulate in London (near Aldwych) is slightly better, usually takes me about 2.5 hours to get one from start to picking up your passport. Again though it is agood idea to get there early to avoid the worst of the queues, oh, and take your own black pen to fill out the forms as you can't get one there.
Wish they did one that lasted longer than 6 month though, my old one always seems to run out just before I'm due to go again!

Just an update on this thread for anyone looking for an Indian visa for 2008.
Problems with restricted numbers of visas being issued from the CGI Birmingham continue and are annoying businesses in the vicinity of the consular offices (well, businesses other than the local cafe) to the point where the story made it onto the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west ... 064717.stm
Even if you get there at 5 or 6 in the morning and are one of the lucky ones who don't get turned away (bit of a bummer if you've just travelled 200 miles), the best case senario is that you will spend 6 hours in ques to get your visa.

Fortunatly, there is an alternative that doesn't involve trusting you passport to the great British postal system.
If you go on the CGI Birmingham website, you can find a list of "Authorised Travel Agents" who can sort ot your visa for you.
http://www.cgibirmingham.org/AuthTravelAgents_alt.htm
This was the route that I used. I'm not going to get into advertising one of these companies over the others but using one of these agents cost me the princely sum of £10 (I could have got them to securely post my passport and visa back to me for a higher fee) which when compared to loosing a full day at work and queing for 6 hours was a no brainer.

These guys are definatly a viable option but even if you're detirmined to make the "pilgrimage to Birmingham" to get your visa in person, I can only suggest that you print off a list of these agents so that if you get turned away at the door of the consulate, you can at least sort your visa out that day.