New Delhi
Additional expenses are going to come on the pockets of those traveling to the country to perform Haj. The Ministry of External Affairs of the Government of India (MEA) has last month issued a new tender for outsourcing of passports, visas and consular (CPV) services for 23 Indian missions/posts. The request for the proposal in the new tender (RFP) service fee which has been fixed, is going to be expensive for those traveling to these countries from India. According to the new rules, these costs can increase by 15 to 20 times. This step has created concerns for Indian citizens and foreign workers, especially blue-collar employees.
RFP released 23 Indian posts
Let us know that this RFP has been released for 23 Indian missions/posts, including Abu Dhabi (UAE), Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), Kuwait, Doha (Qatar), Muscat (Oman), Rome (Italy), Paris (France ), The Hague (Netherlands), Bangkok (Thailand), Tehran (Iran), Moscow (Russia), Burn (Switzerland), Seoul (South Korea), Warsaw (Poland), Bahrain Empire as well as London (UK), Canber (Australia), Colombo (Sri Lanka), Singapore, Wellington (New Zealand), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Pretoria (South Africa) and India’s Consul General Embassy in Hong Kong includes the Indian Embassy.
Between January 2022 and December 2024, these missions handled the functioning of about 6.45 million passengers. The new RFP issued on 29 January 2025 has been described to pay service fee to the service provider according to per application. Which includes services such as digitization of papers, fingerprint and facial biometric capture. Apart from this, photocopy, photography, form filling and courier services have also been included.
Tender amount will be recovered from Indian passengers
According to the RFP, whoever will be the bidder will have to bid a certain amount on the basis of these services. The companies taking the tender will be charged by the Indian passengers who will coat the amount in the tender.
It is believed that the new fee structure is expected to increase the cost of services ten times. Previously, different service fees were levied for personal services like photocopy, photography, forming and document uploads for online applications. So that if a person comes with a paper himself, he would not have to pay for him, but now all the passengers will have to pay a fixed amount together for all the facilities. This will directly benefit those travel companies, which will get tenders on the basis of new RFP for these countries. Especially VFS Global, IVS Global, BLS International, Du Digital and Alankit are selected companies, which have been occupying this field till now.