Qatar Visa Centers to provide family visa services soon: Official

Doha: Qatar Visa Centers (QVCs) abroad have eased the procedures of recruiting workers from different countries.

At present, QVCs are providing service for work visas only and very soon the process for the family visit visa, multiple entry visa, and family residence visas will also be provided through these centers operating in a number of countries, said a senior official.

The Ministry of Interior (MoI) organised an awareness webinar entitled ‘The Services of Qatar Visa Center for the Public’.

Speaking at the virtual event, Captain Khalid Salim Al Numaani, Head of the Technical Studies Section at the Visa Support Services Department of the General Directorate of Passports, said MoI always keeps up to date with all economic and urban developments in accordance with Qatar National Vision 2030 and in preparation for hosting many global and regional events.

From this point of view, he noted that a directive was issued by the General Directorate of Passports to study the possibility of starting to take fingerprints, collect biometric data of expatriates, conducting a medical examination for them and signing of work contracts in the country of origin before their arrival in Qatar which is by establishing visa centers abroad to complete these procedures in cooperation with competent authorities of Qatar.

The project implementation partners are the Ministry of Public Health represented by the Medical Commission, the Ministry of Labour, and service provider, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MoI.

Captain Al Numaani said in the first phase, the project covers nine countries and QVCs are already operational in six countries — India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Philippines.

The remaining three countries are Kenya, Tunisia and Indonesia. These countries were selected in the first phase because 67 percentage of the workforce are from these countries.

“In India we have seven Qatar Visa Centres, two in Pakistan, and one each in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Philippines,” he said.

Regarding the operating and functional procedures at QVCs, the official noted that first the data of the applicant is verified and the registration process is done.

The application for approaching the visa centre should be completed through Metrash2. The second procedure is to review the expatriate’s employment contract in his or her local language.

Al Numaani said, “We have implemented a system where the applicant deals with his employment contract in his local language in order to avoid any confusion that may occur later. Then the signing of the employment contract is done electronically and we ask them to go for the fingerprints, palm scan and facial image capture and iris scan. After submission of this data, the concerned department conducts security checks and then visas are issued.”