Agency puts blame on AFI

The visa facilitation agency, which was blamed by the Athletics Federation of India for causing delay in the team’s departure for the Asian Junior Championship in Taipei City, said the confusion was caused by AFI itself.

The Indian team could not leave for the event as per schedule after its visa applications were mistakenly sent to the Chinese Embassy instead of the Chinese Taipei Representative Office.

The task of handling the applications had been given to a visa facilitating agency - VFS Global. The AFI had claimed that the agency mistakenly sent the applications to the Chinese Embassy.

But VFS Global on Thursday stated that it was the AFI which committed the error while submitting the applications.

We are not culprits

“On June 6, VFS Global received visa applications for 36 applicants from the Athletics Federation of India. The applications submitted to us were on the Chinese Visa Application forms and were submitted at the Chinese Visa Application Centre.

“This centre where the applications were submitted has very prominent signage about it being a Chinese Visa Application Centre (not a Taiwan Visa Application Centre),” the company stated in a release.

“Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) has a very different visa application form and they have a separate office which accepts visa applications. VFS Global does not handle any service related to Taiwan visas,” the agency clarified.

The 30 athletes and four officials were to leave for Chinese Taipei on Wednesday but they had to delay the departure by a day. They left at 1.00 am IST on Thursday.