Heading over here I was of course a little bit concerned about the Famous Indian Bureaucracy. I have always rated bureaucracies with Germany as #2 and The Ohio State University as #1. India… well, it certainly isn't easy, but the fact that people at least speak some English and usually good English keep Germany in #2 for Americans anyway, with India just a little less complex. They are, however quite a bit less organized than Germany. Patience has been the key. I have expected it to be difficult, inscrutable at times and redundant. Probably having these expectations going in has helped me a lot.
In this post I will concentrate on the Visa. At first the idea was to get a Business Visa. This allows the traveller multiple entries for "business meetings." This will work for most VFX purposes. This is the visa to have if you are working for a US company, (maybe your own) and contracting to an Indian company, or working with an Indian company as a client. This visa requires a pile of documentation proving that a) The Indian Company exists, is incorporated in India and pays taxes. b) The company you work for exists and employs you and will ensure that you have a place to stay, medical coverage and you will pay your taxes, c) There is an agreement between the two companies. Plus of course all the international stuff you need anyway. There's a complete rundown of the website of a company called Travisa which the Indian government has contracted to handle all of the USA related paperwork. You can't get a visa directly from the Indian Consulate. You must go through Travisa. Otherwise I think the consulate would have been inundated by various agencies representing various groups and individuals. It's now one stop shopping for the Consulate.
So we started in on the Business Visa, but it was looking to get rejected according to Travisa (good on the phone, contrary to web reviews) because as I am not incorporated and my "company" was not going to pass muster. They actually said that even if I was incorporated it might not fly because I was signing my own confirmation of employment which would raise red flags. It was critical that all the documents be on good letterhead. They were hip to all the Word Template letterheads and would probably reject them just on that basis. Whoa.
So, we switched to the Employment Visa, which was the correct one for me, as I am actually being hired by an Indian company to work in India. No US company is involved. This visa is allegedly harder to get. They told us that the Business Visa would take "a few days" and the Employment Visa "might take months." (Tourist Visas take 24 hours typically, by the way.) The Employment Visa required all the same documents, minus the US company information, plus the employment agreements between the Indian company and me. We found that Travisa will not accept any uncompleted package. They won't send papers to the Consulate unless they are pretty much a rubber stamp. This actually works pretty well and the people at Travisa in San Francisco were helpful and accurate with their work. They had lots of good communication with email, website and mobile texts. Going down there in person really expedites things. You need to set appointments on their website. After the paperwork was accepted it was only one day to return the visa, at least in my case. They only give out visas between 530p and 630p so you need to plan for that. We went down to the city and were sitting having coffee across the street when we got the text message that all was ready. The Indian company was allegedly working an expedition from the Indian Embassy in Washington to get the SF Consulate to push this through, but I suspect that that had less to do with the fast turnaround than that we had everything together in a nice package.
A few more details: You have to surrender your passport to Travisa, so expect that. There are fees. They vary by visa type. Usually around US$150-250. Get lots of passport pictures. Lots. You will need them eventually.
Bottom line is that on the USA side, and largely here in India, if you have your documents carefully handled you are way ahead of the game. Almost all the trouble comes from incomplete or incorrect or unverifiable information. Like all bureaucracies, if you make it easy for them it's easier for you.
Next I'll talk about The Foreign Registration. That's Indian Bureaucracy in India. It's different than hanging out at the Blue Bottle waiting for your iPhone to tell you the news.
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