Hello,
I am from India and living in Belgium.
My wife will be joining me on December month.
She is applying visa in India through vfs. One point I did not understand wrt documents.
All official documents must be recent i.e. not older than 6 months, attested by local, competent authorities and then legalized by The Ministry for External Affairs, Consular Division, Patiala House, New Delhi.
In above statement who is local and competent authorities?
Please let me know if any one has this information.
Belgium LOng Term Visa
saravanan.km
07 November 2014 09:56:18
7
aneesh
08 November 2014 08:40:41
1990
Depending on the nature of the document, the local authority can differ. Normally it is the home ministry of the state in India, from which the document is issued. The whole process is called 'state attestation', which is a pre-requisite for MEA attestation (apostle).
By the way, VFS provides state attestation and apostle services:
http://www.vfs-be-in.com/additionalservices.htmlhttp://www.vfsattestation.com/attestation.asp
And December -- you are very optimistic 
saravanan.km
08 November 2014 13:38:56
7
Hi Anees,
All documents are ready except with attestation/Apostille.
Looks like it takes 25- 40 days to get state attaestation and MEA Apostille.
Earlier I planned to take family end of dec, now it may extend due to this Apostile work.
BTW, Do you know all VFS service branches provides state attestation.
Basically am from Tamil Nadu. My wife planning to apply Visa either Bangalore or Chennai VFS.
saravanan.km
08 November 2014 19:14:21
7
Hello Anees,
How long does it take to get a visa D for my spouse if she has all the documents with her?
aneesh
08 November 2014 20:23:12
1990
** First of all My name is Aneesh
For Belgium visa application, it is VFS Bangalore.
For attestation, you can find VFS website, get their number and give them a call to check if they can handle it from Chennai.
About timelines, nowadays Belgian consulate in India is sending almost all spouse visa applications to the foreign ministry in Belgium, for verification. If your wife's file is sent to Belgium, it may take 2-3 months or more for the ministry to make a decision.
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