The British deputy high commission has decided to open new Visa Application Centres in Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

Earlier the applicants from south India had to make innumerable trips to Chennai and stand in a queue, sometime from morning till evening, in front of the high commission office, for a visa to the United Kingdom.

Geoff Wood, second secretary in the immigration department, said, "A survey conducted by us found that nobody likes to stand in a queue for a visa. So, it is to improve visa application facilities that these new procedures are introduced."

He added, "Though we are opening offices only in the three cities in South India initially, more centres will be opened in other cities too across India. This improved service has been developed as part of the British High Commission's continued commitment to make UK visa services more accessible to customers."

Among the southern states, only Kerala does not have a new visa application centre. The Commission would open a centre in Kerala too when they spread the same service to more centres.

Wood also said the newly opened visa centres are equipped with adequate trained staff. All the new Visa Application Centres will be operated by a limited company called Visa Facilitations Services.

The applications in the new center are forwarded to the Commission in Chennai. Once the application is approved, the passport, endorsed with appropriate United Kindgom visa will be returned to the application centre by courier, or sent to the applicant's home or office address.

The Commission has also said that those who require an interview can fix an appointment time that suits them with the Commission. "Queuing for a visa outside the Commission will be a thing of the past," Wood said.

From 17,000 applications for a UK visa in 1996, the number has increased to 54,000 in the year 2002, which is expected to rise to at least 63,000 in 2003.

Out of the 54,000 applications, 95 per cent were given visas, Wood said, and among the applicants, the majority is for visit visas while nearly 10,000 students had also applied.

Though Geoff Wood refused to link the September 11 attack in US and their stringent visa rules to the increase in the number of visa applications from Indian students to Britain, he confessed that there has been a tremendous increase in the number of students who wanted to study in the UK.

"Ten years ago, not many considered Britain as a place to study. With the yearly university education fairs, the awareness has increased tremendously and the maximum number of applicants is for Masters in Engineering and Information Technology," he said.