We had originally reported on December 1, 2011 that all immigrant visa applications for South India would be processed by the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai. This was officially updated on the VFS website on January 20, 2012 and this update can be found here.

A news update on the English Daily “The Hindu” indicates that the Chief of Consular Services at U.S. Consulate in Mumbai David Tyler had brief the media during an official tour that the new U.S. Consulate in Mumbai that they will commence processing of immigrant visas for South India.

This news article indicates that the new procedure will come into effect from January 9, 2012 and this move would centralize the visa workload in Mumbai. Effectively, immigrant visa applicants will have to send in their applications and supporting documents to Mumbai, instead of Chennai. Regular visitors to MurthyIndiaDotCom and readers of MurthyIndiaBulletin may be aware that the U.S. Consulate in Mumbai handles immigrant visas for U.S. Consulate in Kolkata and the U.S. Consulate in Chennai handles immigrant visas falling under the jurisdiction of U.S. Consulate in Hyderabad as well.

At the time of this writing, there is no official release of this information on any of the U.S. Consular or U.S. Embassy’s websites. We will keep our readers informed if there is any further information available on this matter. The online version of the newspaper article can be found here.