I am about to apply for OCI through brampton VFS.
i want to know the following details from who have already gone through this.

How long is the oci application process?
How long does they keep original docs?

Dear all,
A few days/months back , i posted several posts about my frustrating situation in CD regarding the OCI status granted online, but nothing happened thereafter for months. even after i made several calls to toronto office as well as visiting VFS. The toronto phone number told that , my wife's landing papers were missing and so i did resubmit them to VFS, but nothing happened.
During this process at VFS, i happened to meet a gentleman, who had a similar situation as me, but told that his photograph is a problem and hence the delay for several months. I checked this with VFS and they told me that if photograph is a problem, the consulate will update that online. Since i do not see any update , my photograph should be ok.
Anyways, i waited for several days after submission of my wife's landing papers to VFS (2 weeks). Still nothing happened. I decided to directly go to the consulate remembering that gentleman's word at VFS. I told the consulate guy my problem and he immediately told me that my photo was the problem and i need to resubmit it again. I asked him why was it not updated online, as i lost several months over it, he was silent.
Then i resubmitted my photos with Part-A information on on october 4, 2009
Here is what happened after that.,

Date Of Acknowledgment 21-MAY-2009
Application Status :
Registration Status Granted On 27-JUN-2009
Photo/Signature Scanned: 8-OCT-2009
Documents Printing Status : PRINTED
Documents Printed on:9-OCT-2009
Documents Dispatched to Concerned Mission/Office on: 13-OCT-2009
Documents Received at TORONTO : 27-OCT-2009
OCI certificate obtained: 5-NOV-2009

Moral of the story
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1. VFS or the helpline telephones has no clue what the real problem is. they do not even know what the consulate is upto.
2. If there is some problem, go to consulate directly than VFS.
3. Be very proactive. If you do not see your photo/signature scanned after 35 days, go to consulate immediately than waiting and wasting months.
4. The consulate people are lazy buggers and they will not contact you or update online, if there is some problem with your file. You have to bother them.
4. VFS is rubbish. It only collects documents like a postman and cannot help you solve your real problem (instead it complicated my situation by giving wrong information), which is getting the OCI.

Anyways want to update this as i saw atleast 4-5 people with similar situation during my multiple visits to VFS, but have no clue where things are getting delayed.Hope this helps.

Good luck guys.It was one hell of an experience getting the OCI.

Thanks manbas for posting your exprience.

Quote:

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Originally posted by manbas

I decided to directly go to the consulate remembering that gentleman's word at VFS. I told the consulate guy my problem and he immediately told me that my photo was the problem and i need to resubmit it again. I asked him why was it not updated online, as i lost several months over it, he was silent.

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Dimple2001

Quote:

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Originally posted by dimple2001
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Seriously, these people are bunch of incompetent fools mired in beauracracy. I do have to give them credit (both the consulate and VFS) for routing critical documents through this mess for months on without losing any of them.

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Anyone on the forum dealing with OCI recently?

Just curious how long is the wait time once the application has been submitted?

Especially when online status shows Documents dispatched to Mission/Consulate and it has been close to 20 days now but no updates.

Funny is mha.nic.in website says to contact local consulate after 10 days if status is not updated online.
But when you call Toronto consulate, they say we just need to wait and website is incorrect. How long to wait, no idea.

Anyone out there going through this?

I had mine done last month, and I believe it took around 20 days for the process. Usually the website get updated around that time.

My personal experience
a. People at VFS were very friendly and helpful in explaining the things.
b. The Call Centre guys dont have correct information on each case they go by the general rules and we could be mislead, the appropriate one is the website.
c. Feel bad to have so many trips to the VFS (once to submit the app, then to collect, later to Submit the pp's and finally to collect them)

Apart from (c) i was okay with VFS.

rgds