``The goal is to give people visas in less than an hour,'' Donald E.Wells, Chief of Consular Section, told Express Newsline. These measures are being undertaken to cut down on the eight hours that it currently takes to obtain a visa. According to Wells, the consulate had begun preliminary discussions with a few companies for the scheme which already exists in US consulates in some 50 countries.

The appointment scheme where visa applicants would be called at a particular time, would cost a little more and would be optional, Wells said.

Appointments would be fixed over the phone and a private company, preferably one with city-wide branches all over the city, would be authorised to collect the visa fees by the consulate. He was speaking at the inauguration of a 300-seat pavilion for US visa-seekers by the US Consul General David Goodat Breach Candy. The pavilion is equipped with touch-screen, user-friendly kiosks which provide visa information when the relevant part of the screen is touched.

Issuing over 600 visas and day and 140,000 visas annually, the US consulate in Mumbai runs the largest visa issuing operation in the country. ``This figure is set to reach over 200,000 in the next two years and even the quarter million figure is within reach,'' Wells said.

According to Lalit Sheth, Chairman and Managing Director of Raj Travels who provided the pavilion equipped with chairs and phones at a car-park close the consulate, people needing a US visa normally queue outside the consulate from midnight, braving the weather, without water or a place to sit. Some of them come from Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Goa.

But Wells says such hardships are totally unnecessary. ``Visa-seekers can comfortably come between 9 and 11 am and collect their visas from 4 pm.''``Issuing visas is a service we are obligated to perform and it is our duty to seethat the process is carried out comfortably while observing the checks,'' said Consul General Good. He said that the growing numbers of visa seekers were indicative of the growing ties between India and the US.

Wells ruled out any expansion of facilities for the growing number of visa seekers within the consulate, as their building has been declared a heritage precinct.