Has anyone tried the BLS courier services for Indian visa? They offer a pickup and drop off service from home for $35 per application. Is this reliable - would be good to hear someone's experience if you have used it.

https://www.blsindia-canada.com/vas.php

At this point, they are not offering appointments for visa anymore and recommending that we use this. The pickup service from consulate is not available anyways according them to we have to spend 20 bucks for delivery per application anyways. The pickup is $15 extra.

Any feedback is appreciated.

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Are you there?

The pick up original documents after consulate verification is no more available and you have to pay for the courier. I have used it last month and got the documents in around 10 days back. I had 3 applications and they combined them together and I have to pay only for one courier service fee of $ 20.

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A Delhite in Toronto

Had tried their courier service last year for receiving Indian Passports after submitting them for cancellation @ $20 per application.

Delivery was professional (probably via UPS) and timely.

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Fido.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Here's where it stands if you apply for a visitor visa.

If you call BLS and ask them to get an appt., their response is booking appts. is not available right now (not sure what the reason is). They "highly recommend" that you use their courier pickup and dropoff services for your application. I.e. you don't have to visit their office at all, have someone pick your application up from home and then deliver it back once done. Cost is $35 per application.

I think they're likely doing this to make some additional money and potentially for crowd control too. When I asked them "what if I walk in", I was given all kinds of dire scenarios that there's a huge line up, people have to go back etc etc. The fishy thing I was told was if I didn't book appt. to "pick up" application right away, the next one would not be available for a week. (huh?)

I disregarded this and walked in for the visa application anyways. Most of the warnings about the crowd are overstated. As a matter of fact, if you go early enough before they open and queue up, you can be out of there within 30 mins. to an hour. In my case, it took more than 2 hours before I went a couple of hours after the office opening.

The new thing now is they're not allowing passport pick up from their offices like they did not the past for tourist visas (citing "too big a crowd to handle". The only option is to have this couriered back at the cost of $20 per application (does not apply to OCI as far as I can tell, you can still pick those up).

Overall, I found services in the BLS office today quite professional, no complaints. Big crowd as expected, but generally well behaved and well managed.

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Are you there?

Always hard to trust your documents with these guys..when they say they will courier them.

But if they are making it mandatory , there is no option .

They need to add more staff.

Charge 20 bucks more if you want per person , but hire more staff and pay them well, so that customers don't suffer and have to wait . Also cut the red tape and bureaucracy, while at it.

My time is more important than a few bucks, and making unnecessary visits over there.

Got passports back today (took a week total). Overall, pretty happy with the service. I've read some horror stories on the net, so was a bit anxious but my experience was not bad.

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