I am here to shed light on the chaos & confusion that surrounds around the visa application submission process at the Chinese Embassy in Gulshan, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The fact is the world economy is in lot of trouble because among other things consumer confidence is at bare minimum. In this regards one would assume that the Chinese Embassy would appreciate the fact that a large crowd shows up at their gate everyday with visa applications in their hands. However their treatment of the crowd speaks otherwise.
I was there 2 days. The first day,7/8/2009, I reached the Embassy at 8:30 AM. I had the 80th position in the line. The visa office opened at 9, started to receive 5 visa applications every 45 minutes. At noon they closed the door while I along with 70-90 other applicants were waiting in the line. During the three hour wait I saw people selling their positions to latecomers like me, saw two individuals engage in a nasty verbal fight over their positions in the line and saw Porimol ( Gatekeeper) misbehaving with an on-duty Policeman who caught a guy trying to submit 45 passports at a time. There were rumors that Porimol & Alam ( Passport delivery guy) were taking bribes to facilitate application-reception. The guards at the gate were regular Policemen on duty, who seemed equally irritated by the fact that the Porimol was letting people in who never stood in the line. I saw irritated individuals threatening the gate keeper to call media and later found he posted his video clips at youtube.com. Here is just one of the many the user ”lashkarhome” posted.
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He commented the video as follows:
“We were declined, which is fine but the cause was “the FORM must be filled by PRINTER, No hand-writing will be accepted”, Which the Form doesn’t say!!!!! I am going nuts thinking that because of their lack/inability of communication I will have to comeback to this ill-managed Chinese Embassy in Bangladesh….
wait from 3-4AM to get a line-position within the first 60 people. Some-one please shoot me and get me out of this misery.
Anyhow, i will stop my gripe and show you the guys who could not even make it to the Visa-Office-Gate“
Rest of his video postings can be found at:
http://www.youtube.com/lashkarhome
On the 2nd day,7/9/2009 I managed to reach the Embassy at 6AM. To my surprise the line was long already, I was the 70th person ! In about half an hour I was approached by a dalal ( middleman) and bought the 27th position for 1000 taka. By 9 AM the line had about 120 people in it. A group of 20 people came and claimed that there were in line the priorday and maintained a list! They eventually muscled in so I became the 47th in line. They started to take 5 visa applications at a time every 20 minutes. I was called in at 11:50AM and we were the last group of 5 who got in. There were still 80-90 people in the line.
Here are my observations:
1. Three hours of operation with only ONE counter for the Bangladeshi visa applicants is an inadequate Chinese response to the our needs.
2. The Porimol-Alom group needs investigation and exemplary punishment if found guilty
3. Make separate arrangements for Ladies so that they can wait in line with dignity
4. Facilitate sitting and restroom services for elderly & physically challenged
5. Chinese embassy needs to start managing the visa applicant queue by
• Providing Line-Position-Registration service sensitive to people who waited in line the prior day
• Co-operate with the on-duty Police to discipline the line when necessary
I can imagine the challenge involved in running an Embassy in Bangladesh where people from lines from midnight and the lack of service during huge crowds translates to extra income (Bribe) for the gatemen. However Chinese embassy can make an effort to fix these issues. I will be sending this writing to the Foreign Ministry of both Nations, their major newspapers, human rights organizations and the broadcasting agencies. A quick response to these mismanagements will be much appreciated by me and fellow Bangladeshis.
Thank you.
