The Hague:
The Indian embassy in Netherlands will soon start printing passports for Indian nationals in need, Ambassador Venu Rajamony has said. At present, the passports are sent to New Delhi for printing. In his address on the occasion of India’s 74th Independence Day on Saturday, Rajamony made two key announcements for facilitating the consular services by the embassy to the Indian nationals and the diaspora in the Netherlands, according to an official statement issued on Monday.
Rajamony said Indian nationals will soon be able to submit various documents to the embassy via post and will also be able to receive various documents from the embassy by post. It will ease the current process as visits to the Visa Facilitation Service centres in the Netherlands could be avoided henceforth, the statement said.
“(The) Ambassador also informed that the embassy will soon start printing of passports in The Hague and this will significantly reduce the time taken, from two weeks to few days, for issuing passports to the Indian nationals in need,” it said. The Netherlands is home to the largest Indian diaspora on mainland Europe which includes about 40,000 Indian nationals and 2,00,000 strong members from the Surinami-Hindustani community and so the delivery of consular services attains tremendous significance here, the statement read.
The 74th Independence Day of India was celebrated at India House, the official residence of the Ambassador of India to the Netherlands in Wassenaar. “In view of COVID-19 and to facilitate participation by Indian nationals, members of the diaspora as well as friends of India in the Netherlands, the event was telecast live on the social media page of the embassy in The Hague,” it said.
More than 2,500 people were reached with the celebrations online, the statement said. The celebrations began with the Ambassador unfurling the national flag which was followed by playing of the national anthem.
The ambassador also read out the message from the President of India to the nation, it said. In recent years, India-Netherlands relations have strengthened with a number of high-level visits from both sides.
The leadership from the two sides have been exchanging views on various issues, including the COVID-19 outbreak, the statement said. S Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of India spoke with Stef Blok, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Netherlands in June and Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal held a teleconference with Sigrid Kaag, Minister for Trade and Development Cooperation in May this year.
Amid the COVID-19 situation, Phillips, a Dutch industrial conglomerate, has announced USD 40 million investments for expanding its Pune facility. The Netherlands is the third-largest foreign investor in India with investments amounting to USD 6.5 billion in 2019-20. The cumulative investments in India from the Netherlands stand at USD 33.85 billion.
