From March 31, a new passport passback service will come into effect that will allow Indians who wish to visit the UK to get their visas without their passports being retained as visa decisions are being made.
The service will be introduced in all 12 UK visa centres in India, although to begin with, the service will be capped to 75 slots a day in each visa application centre. This service will allow travellers time for applying for other countries’ visa if they need to.
Alongside, the UK has also upped its fees for visas, immigration, nationality applications and other premium services.
The passport passback service fee has been fixed at Rs. 4,200 per applicant. The priority visa (what used to be called fast track) that is processed between two and three days will cost Rs 10,500. A prime time appointment at the visa application centre will cost Rs 5250, and the user pay service for the visa application centre in Goa will now cost Rs. 6195. The cost of the super priority visa service remains Rs. 63,000.
