New Delhi: Students’ wait for the United Kingdom (UK) visa seems to be getting longer due to the excessive demand leading to more processing time.
During the period of the COVID-19 pandemic (September 2020 to September 2021), the UK has issued more than double the number of student visas than it did during the same time frame the previous year, reported The Times of India.
“A huge rush for India to the UK from September 2020 to September 2021. Student visas (up by) 102% (90,669) and skilled worker visas (up by) 47% (53,295) on previous year. Huge demand is why turnaround of visas is taking longer than usual. Team working through cases,” British high commissioner to India Alex Willis said via a tweet on Friday.
“Compared with the previous year, there was an increase of 45,677 (+102%) grants to Indian nationals, reaching 90,669. This was also 197% higher than the year ending September 2019. Indian nationals remain the nationality with the second highest number of Sponsored study visa grants. Chinese and Indian nationals together comprise more than half (53%) of all Sponsored study grants,” showed the data released by the British Home Office.
Going by the UK Home Office data, passenger arrival declined to 69 per cent due to the pandemic travel restrictions in the year ending September 2021 over the same period in the previous year.
Similarly, 19 per cent fewer visas were granted in this period. “There were an estimated 21 million passenger arrivals in the year ending September 2021 (including returning UK residents), a 69% (46.3 million) decrease compared with the previous year. This was due to the travel restrictions imposed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. There were 1,115,155 visas granted in the year ending September 2021, 19% fewer than the previous year and 64% fewer than the year before as a result of the global pandemic. Of the visas granted in this last 12 months, 39% were for study, 23% were to visit, 18% were to work, 4% were for family, and 15% for other reasons,” statistics released by the UK home office showed.
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