Dubai: The Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi has invited fresh bids for outsourcing passport and visa services as its contract with Empost ends in April next year.
Empost currently handles around 200,000 passport and 80,000 visa applications in a year. The national courier agency collects and collates these applications along with passports of applicants, delivers them to the Embassy of India, Abu Dhabi and the Consulate General of India, Dubai and, once processed, returns the passports to the applicants.
"The (new) contract will be signed for a period of three years with a review of operations after every year," the proposal posted on the Indian mission website last week stated.
"It is a routine matter. Whoever qualifies technically and financially will be awarded the contract," M.K. Lokesh, Indian Ambassador to the UAE, told XPRESS.
The outsourcing of consular services to Empost had come under fire in the early days with teething problems resulting in long queues at centres in Karama and Sharjah.
The decision by Empost to increase courier delivery charges of passports from Dh15 to Dh50 on June 1, 2009, had also created a stir. The charges were reduced to Dh30.
However, since then Empost has handled over thousands of visa and passport applications.
Sultan Al Midfa, Chief Executive Officer, Empost, said, "We will endeavour to renew the contract as per existing terms and conditions, as we had put in a lot of effort to secure the original contact and we have a long-standing relationship with the [Indian] mission."
He said Empost would be submitting its bid before the January 10, 2011, deadline.
