The United States consulate general, Mumbai has scheduled a “Super Saturday” on May 15 for coping with the huge amount of aspiring travellers applying for visas to travel to the United States during summer. Usually, the US consulate does not work on Saturday.
The visa applications have increased tremendously this month, and this has forced the consulate to call its staff to work on Saturday.
Mr J. Drew Giblin from the consular information unit said, “We are operating at full capacity every day, but the demand is so great that we are pulling our staff in on Saturday for a marathon day of visa work. Many of the applications are for tourist visas.”
Around 1,800 travellers have applied for May 15 as their visa interview date after the appointments were made available online.
The figures are expected to rise. “The super Saturdays are planned when we feel that there is a need for extra space and time to meet the high volume of applicants,” said Mr Giblin
The staff will be working overtime to accommodate visa pplicants in western India.
“Saturday is not a normal business day for the US consulate, but we are determined to meet the demand,” said Ms Wendy Ryde, visa chief, US consulate general, Mumbai.