India to expand visa services in Bangladesh following surge in demand

Bangladesh: tourist visa demand is now the bottleneck

Tourist visas were officially resumed on June 28, 2026, from five centres, including Dhaka. The restart followed a two-year suspension.

The High Commission said it was encouraged by the response from applicants and thanked them for their patience. That wording matters. It signals demand is running ahead of normal handling capacity, even as the mission says it will continue expanding services.

Operationally, the relevant site is the India Visa Application Centre at Jamuna Future Park in Dhaka. High Commissioner Dinesh Trivedi visited the centre after presenting his credentials to Bangladesh’s president. Long queues were observed there, according to the report.

Do not read “scale up” as immediate same-day relief. It means additional capacity is planned or being added. It does not provide a guaranteed appointment slot, issue date, or faster e-Visa processing window.

The suspension context still affects planning

The earlier suspension was linked in the report to security concerns after incidents on August 5, 2024, when the Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre was attacked and several IVACs faced disruptions.

During the tourist-visa suspension, the High Commission continued processing more than 1,500 visas daily across non-tourist categories, with priority given to medical and emergency cases. That is a useful distinction for applicants.

Tourism is now back in the channel. Medical and emergency handling had continued separately. Travellers should not assume those lanes operate under the same queue logic, documentation threshold, or urgency treatment.

For Bangladesh-based applicants planning India trips, the immediate risk is not eligibility in principle. It is appointment availability, document readiness, and travel bookings made before visa issuance.

Sri Lanka: a separate consular change starts July 7

India is also changing outsourced visa and consular handling in Sri Lanka. The High Commission of India in Colombo has selected Alhind Global Services as the new outsourcing service provider for visa, passport, OCI, attestation, and other consular services.

Operations are scheduled to commence on July 7, 2026. The arrangement covers the High Commission in Colombo, the Assistant High Commission in Kandy, and the Consulates General in Jaffna and Hambantota.

A new Indian Consular Application Centre is also to open in Batticaloa. From July 7, applicants will be able to book appointments through the ICAC Sri Lanka website and submit applications at centres in Colombo, Kandy, Jaffna, Hambantota, and Batticaloa.

For foreign travellers, this is not the same event as the Bangladesh tourist-visa restart. But it points to the same administrative theme: India is adjusting front-end visa and consular infrastructure in neighbouring countries. If applying outside your country of citizenship or residence, check the local mission’s current appointment and submission rules before fixing India travel dates.

Applicant checklist

Before paying for flights or hotels:

• Confirm the correct application centre for your location and visa category.
• Check whether appointment booking is required before document submission.
• Do not rely on queue reports from another city or another visa category.
• Keep medical, emergency, tourist, OCI, passport, and attestation services separate in your planning.
• Treat “services expanding” as an operational update, not a visa approval commitment.
• Build itinerary slack until the passport is returned with the visa issued.