Toronto: After almost three years, after being suspended as a result of Covid-19 pandemic, walk-in candidates shall be allowed for documentation associated to journey to India from Wednesday.

This was introduced by India’s excessive fee to Ottawa on Tuesday. This facility shall be obtainable from February 1 on the centres operated by BLS, the agency that has been contracted for this goal.

“All candidates searching for visa, OCI, passport and different consular companies can use the walk-in mode to submit their purposes and supporting paperwork,” a launch from the excessive fee mentioned, including that this may very well be executed with out prior appointment.

The announcement got here at the same time as a big backlog of purposes is pending for the issuance of those journey paperwork. In December, India’s excessive commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma pointed to the rising demand for Abroad Citizen of India (OCI) playing cards, because the variety of purposes grew to 49,000 in November as in opposition to 26,000 for a similar month final yr.

The rationale for the rising demand is the rising inhabitants of Indian-origin immigrants in Canada. There are about 240,000 college students from India at Canadian establishments at the moment, whereas in 2021, India was the highest supply nation for everlasting residents, with 127,933, or over 1 / 4 of the entire, admitted.

Acceptance of walk-in candidates is a part of the gradual normalisation of companies which had been disrupted as a result of coronavirus disaster. The e-visa programme for Canadian nationals resumed in December, although there isn’t any timeline to resume the ten-year a number of entry vacationer visa scheme which was suspended when the Covid-19 pandemic began within the spring of 2020.

“Stroll-in companies are being launched along with the appointment and postal modes, which might proceed to stay obtainable,” the discharge famous.

The excessive fee additionally requested those that had already booked appointments for submission of their purposes, and had been now going to make use of the walk-in facility to cancel their appointment slots.