Dubai: A delegation from the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs in Dubai (GDRFA) visited UAE visa offices in Indonesia and India to strengthen ties with those countries.
The delegation visited the UAE Consulate General in Kerala to follow up on the procedures and enhancing the issuing of employment visas to some categories of prospective Indian employees coming to the UAE.
Mohammad Abdullah Al Gafli, UAE Ambassador to Indonesia, welcomed Brigadier Dr Omar Al Shamsi, assistant general director for the entry and residency permits in GDRFA Dubai, and Lieutenant-Colonel Jasem Ali Ahli, director of entry permits in GDRFA, during their visit.
Al Gafli stressed that the visa office procedures in Indonesia have reduced the time to get visas and discussed the joint efforts with the delegation for providing best customer services.
At the same time, the delegation travelled to Kerala in India to check the visa office and Rashid Khamis Al Shameli, acting Chargé d’affaires at the UAE Consulate in Kerala, took them on a tour of the visa office.
Al Shameli praised GDRFA’s efforts to enhance the cooperation between all parties.
The delegation also visited New Delhi to inspect the visa office there and was welcomed by Dr Ahmad Al Banna, UAE Ambassador to India, who expressed his happiness at the visa process which has helped strengthen the ties between the two countries.
The GDRFA said that the delegation’s visit to the two countries was aimed at exchanging the best practices in issuing visas and improve customer services at the visa sector in the diplomatic missions.
In 2016, the UAE Consulate General in Kerala started issuing employment visas to some categories of prospective Indian employees coming to the UAE.
The prospective domestic help and blue-collar workers can now directly collect the employment visas from the consulate by submitting a reference number he/she receives from the employer in the UAE.
The employer gets the reference number from the UAE immigration authorities once the employment visa for the Indian employee is ready.
Earlier, the employer used to receive the visa on behalf of the employee. The employer used to send a copy of the visa to the employee and submit the original visa at the UAE airport from where the employee collected it upon arrival.
In December last year, the UAE Embassy in India told Gulf News that they would open three more consular offices in India. The new offices in Chandigarh, Chennai and Hyderabad will help Indians in those regions to get UAE visas easily as they can avoid travelling to the existing three consular offices in distant cities.
The embassy has also launched a mobile application to serve both Emiratis and Indians during their travel in India and the UAE. Indians can get information on visa and attestation procedures from the app.
The embassy said its mobile application with the name of the UAE Embassy, New Delhi is available on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.
The app will help 2.8 million Indians living in the UAE, especially most of the blue-collar workers, with necessary information for them.
