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Flight of Indians to US soars

The United States consulate in Bombay has registered a continuous increase in the number of visa applications.

Chief of US consular office Donald Wells said that the office, which services Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa, issued 90,000 visas last year. This showed an increase of 7.02 per cent over the previous year's figure of 84,000.

Of these, 50,000 visas were in the business and tourists category. The rest included more than 7,500 in the temporary workers category, a good number of them to professionals on assignment with the software industry on the Y2K project, 7,500 to sailors and 4,000 to students.

The number of people going to the US to work in the software industry is higher from the southern region, which is handled by the consular office in Madras, he said.

Wells said the number of applications processed in Bombay was 22 per cent higher than what it was the year before. In October and November alone, about 16,000 applications were received. The tourist flow to America had tripled since 1985. About 25,000 tourist visas were issued to visitors from the western region.

The official said his country's policy was to deny visas to scientists and scholars of nuclear physics and those falling in the nuclear proliferation category. Papers of such applicants are directly handled in Washington.

He said the number of applications denied 'was not large.'

UNI

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