CHENNAI: Bharat Joshi, British Deputy High Commissioner in Chennai, claims that the UK was processing record number of visa applications even this year going by the initial trends. Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, Joshi said about 1. 5 lakh visa applications have been processed from five Southern states alone during last fiscal year.
In the year ending March 2017, over 4.14 lakh visitor visas and 11,700 Tier 4 student visas and 5,000 short term study visas have been issued. During the same period, 60,000 work visas of which 90% were for Tier 2 skilled workers. Also, 87% of Indian nationals who applied for a UK visa were successful till June 2017, according to official statistics provided.
Joshi said that studying in the UK was cheaper compared to Australia, Singapore and the US, which are the other preferred destinations by Indian students. “It is at least 15-16% cheaper,” he said.
Though there was a decline in the number of students a few days ago due to certain policy changes, the situation is reversing gradually.
“We have seen a 9% jump in student visas last year and there is lot of activity this year too. It is too early to get the exact numbers as the season is still underway,” Joshi said. Meanwhile, Joshi has asked people from southern India to apply for Chevening scholarships, which is a unique and the largest in the world. “We are offering up to 120 fully funded masters programme. Ironically, there are few takers from southern India, especially Tamil Nadu. I want more Tamilians to apply and avail the generous scholarships. We received only 100 applications from southern states, out of which 6 were offered scholarships last year which is just under 5%,” he rued.