An American investor has highlighted numerous issues with India’s e-visa website, calling it “comically, profoundly, embarrassingly broken.” Raymond Russell, who was applying for a business visa to India, encountered an unusual glitch where the site suddenly displayed a list of the tallest mountains in Indian states midway through his application. Amused, he shared his experience on social media.
Russell criticized the outdated design of the website, saying it looks like it was built in 2003. He noted that it often crashes without saving user data, requires multiple attempts to make a payment with international cards, and only supports limited payment gateways like SBI e-pay, which don’t work well for foreigners. He also pointed out a limitation in listing past travels—applicants must enter all countries visited in the last 10 years but can only add 20 countries.
His post quickly went viral, gaining over one million views in a single day. In response, many Indian users expressed no sympathy, saying this was a small insight into the difficulties Indians face when applying for visas to the US and other Western countries. They mentioned the extensive documentation required and long processing times. Some users even claimed the US visa system is more outdated.
While some supported Russell’s criticism and shared frustrations with Indian government websites, others found humor and irony in the situation. They welcomed the fact that international users were now experiencing similar bureaucratic hurdles.
