Trivandrum: The Federal Republic of Germany will open Visa Application Centres at Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi in Kerala. This was announced today by Jörn Rohde, the German Consul General in Bangalore at a press conference here.
These centres, to be located near Kazhakuttum in Trivandrum and near Ravipuram in Kochi, will be inaugurated by the Minister of State for HRD, Dr. Shashi Tharoor and the German Ambassador to India, Michael Steiner on March 14, 2014.
“Apart from those who travel to Germany on work or as tourists, in the last one year there has been an increase of 20% in the number of Indian students in Germany and we expect this number to rise as Germany is the preferred destination for non-Anglo-Saxon students”, he added.
An Official who is familiar with Kerala said, “About 14,000 persons applied for visa from Kerala in 2013 and this figure is expected to go up substantially when the recruitment and migration of nurses commence later this year, in October. A good number of IT professionals from Kerala are also travelling to Germany for work and events. The opening of the Visa Application Centres will be beneficial to all.”
The Visa Application Centres, to be managed by VFS Global, will offer advantages like shorter waiting periods between scheduling an appointment and the actual application, submission of applications through authorized third person, status of the process anytime retrievable online and SMS updates (free of cost), among other things.
The Federal Republic of Germany has its Embassy in New Delhi and four Consulate Generals at Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and Mumbai.
Anil Philip
Kerala Biz News