BENGALURU: The United States will soon open two new consulates -- one in Bengaluru and another in Ahmedabad -- bringing the total number of US consulates in India to seven. The US already has consulates in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Hyderabad.
Opening a US consulate in Bengaluru has been a long pending demand and will come as a relief to students, techies and companies which have interests in the US.
“It’s a good move and will boost Bengaluru’s image in the global arena,” said Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Minister Priyank Kharge. “It will help the IT and ITES industries, techies and students in Karnataka, who have to travel to Chennai and Hyderabad for their visa applications,” added Kharge.
The demand for the US consulate was mooted much earlier, but on July 2, 2019, the then BJP Karnataka spokesperson AH Anand had written to the then Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers DV Sadananda Gowda requesting him to propose the setting up of the consulate in Bengaluru with the US Embassy and Consulate General office, New Delhi.
“There was a proposal to set up the US Consulate General office in Bengaluru around 12 years ago. However, for reasons unknown, it was converted into a virtual office. As per statistics (then), at least 450 visa applicants travel to Chennai from South Karnataka every day. It is said that a similar number of applicants from North Karnataka travel to Hyderabad every day for the same purpose,” wrote Anand.
“Bengaluru has played a major role in the IT revolution in India, which contributes a major chunk of IT and ITES services in the country. Though Bengaluru has been in the forefront of economic, and technological activities in the country and continues to be the leader, the long-standing demand for the US Consulate General office has remained a distant dream,” he wrote.
The BJP spokesperson urged that the US consulate will not only help serve the visa applicants, it will also help the US delegates who come to Bengaluru for trade meetings and have to depend upon consulate officials from Chennai.
In response to Anand’s letter, which Gowda had forwarded to the Ministry of External Affairs, on July 31, 2019 External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar wrote to Gowda stating that the MEA is “aware of the difficulties posed by the long distance between Bengaluru and Chennai to the US visa applicants,”. He added that during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US in 2016, “India and US committed to open additional consulates in each other’s country.
It was agreed that India will open a new consulate in Seattle and the US will open a new consulate at a mutually agreed location in India. I am sure that given its strong economic and social link with the US, Bengaluru will also be considered as a possible location for the new US consulate. However, the decision with this regard would rest with the US side,” added Jaishankar.
In March this year, the then BJP chief minister, Basavaraj Bommai, during discussion with US Chargé d’Affaires Ambassador A Elizabeth Jones had raised the need for setting up of a US consulate in Bengaluru.