Asserting that people-to-people contact is at the core of Swiss-Indian relationship, the Embassy of Switzerland in India has denied reports that it has suspended Schengen visa appointments for Indian tour groups until October due to the high volume of applications.
“We have almost 800 daily appointments through the end of September 2023. These include 22 groups,” the Embassy said in a recently released statement.
The Embassy has also revealed that it has processed more visa applications in the current year than it did in 2019.
“We have surpassed our pre-pandemic times processing level. From January until June, we handled 1,29,446 applications, as against 1,20,071 during the same period in 2019 — a 7.8 per cent increase,” an official statement said.
In addition, it said various measures have been implemented since the beginning of 2023 to further ease the visa application process for Indian applicants.
As per these measures, it would now be possible for the applicants to apply for their visa six months before their date of travel, as against one month in the past.
Further, the Embassy has increased its overall capacity in India. With a new Visa Application Centre (VAC) in Lucknow, there are now 13 VACs all over India, where applications can be submitted.
The mission also informed that at present it takes “no more than 13 working days between the appointment by our partner VFS Global and the Embassy’s decision on the application”.
The statement of clarification came following media reports which said Indian tour operators were informed by the Swiss embassy to reschedule group trips to allow ample time for visa processing.
A Schengen visa is a short-stay visa granting individuals an opportunity to travel to any member country within the Schengen Area for tourism or business purposes for up to 90 days. One Schengen visa application costs 80 euros.
India had the second-highest number of Schengen visa rejections in 2022, leading to an estimated loss of `87 crore on cancelled trips.