Ranajit Dam

SHENZHEN residents will find it easier to apply for visas for India after the recently opened Consulate General of India in Guangzhou becomes fully operational in the second half of January 2008, Consul General Gautam Bambawale said Thursday.

Bambawale, who was in Shenzhen on Thursday to meet Indian businesspeople based in the city, said that while the Indian consulate had officially opened Oct. 18, its premises were not ready, forcing it operate out of a Guangzhou hotel room.

Once fully functional, the consulate will process passport and visa applications, and carry out other consular work for the provinces of Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan, Hainan and Sichuan and also the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

At present, most of the consular work for China is handled by the Indian Embassy in Beijing, which Bambawale said was most inconvenient for residents of South China applying for Indian visas, as well as for Indians in Shenzhen and other southern Chinese cities who wish to have their passports renewed. "The fact is that Beijing is just too far from here -- a full 3 hours by air," Bambawale said. "In contrast, Guangzhou is only an hour-and-a-half from Shenzhen."

The Indian Embassy in Beijing currently receives between 300 and 400 visa applications every working day from Chinese travelers wishing to visit India, Bambawale said, adding that about 50percent of those are from South China. Once the Guangzhou consulate opens its premises, it will share the workload of the Beijing embassy, and "that's why they (the Beijing embassy) are eagerly waiting for this consulate to be operational," he joked.

Bambawale first visited Shenzhen in 1987, when it was "just a small village." He returned in 2000 to find a city transformed. "Certainly the Shenzhen of 2000 was big. But the Shenzhen of today is even bigger still. I am most impressed with the work the authorities here have done with regard to the city," he said.

The diplomat met a number of Indian businesspeople Thursday at the Shenzhen office of Videocon, a well-known Indian electronics manufacturer, on Fuzhong Road. Over lunch, he discussed with them the experiences of Indians living in Shenzhen.

Bambawale, who hails from the western Indian city of Pune, has been based in China intermittently since 1985, and is fluent in Putonghua.

As Consulate General, Bambawale said his aim was to help develop trade and investment between India and China, "two major developing countries," through seminars and conferences, and also to promote Indian culture by organizing Indian performances and film weeks.