Chandigarh, Oct 16 (SocialNews.XYZ) Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab, Vikramjit Singh Sahney, on Monday said he has requested External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to resume visa service for Canadian citizens of Indian origin who don’t have Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) cards.
Sahney said he has been receiving numerous requests every day from the Indian diaspora, especially Punjabis, regarding their inability to get visas even for emergency visits to India necessitated by serious illness of parents, family weddings or other family exigencies.
Sahney said he spoke to Sanjay Kumar Verma, Indian High Commissioner to Canada, who said they could consider emergency visas only in cases where there has been a death.
“For all other cases or emergencies, he awaits policy guidelines from the Ministry of External Affairs,” Sahney said.
The MP appealed to the External Affairs Minister saying that denial or delay in issuance of visas would cause a lot of hardship to the Indian diaspora in Canada and there was a fear of alienating them.
He hoped that good sense would prevail and the MEA would issue instructions to Indian High Commissions and Consulates in Canada to issue visas.
He suggested that in case of staff shortage in Indian missions, granting of e-visas could be considered. “But we can’t penalise our own brothers and sisters for no fault of theirs,” he added.
Source: IANS
About Gopi
Gopi Adusumilli is a Programmer. He is the editor of SocialNews.XYZ and President of AGK Fire Inc.
He enjoys designing websites, developing mobile applications and publishing news articles on current events from various authenticated news sources.
When it comes to writing he likes to write about current world politics and Indian Movies. His future plans include developing SocialNews.XYZ into a News website that has no bias or judgment towards any.
He can be reached at gopi@socialnews.xyz