I have bolloxed up some travel plans, not for the first time, which mean I don’t have time to get an Indian visa I need. In the time I need to submit my passport to get the visa, I need to go to France. When I get back I would need to leave next day for India.

Can you get some sort of temporary travel document that would see me to France, so I could get the visa sorted by post? Googling emergency passport and the like seems to refer to when you’re abroad and have lost your passport and need to get home.

AKAIK your Google search is correct, temporary travel docs and passports were stopped many moons ago. The sort to get you home in the event of a lost passport is the only sort available…i have recent experience of this.

I believe you can get two passports for visa related issues. They’ll charge you handsomely though.

Might not work for you, but you can often pay extra to get a visa processed quicker. Same day even for some of them: http://www.vfsglobal.com/india/uk/Urgent_Business.html

You can get a passport application relatively rapidly by visiting your local passport office. Which may not be very local.

I’m sure my wife also managed to get a visa for China very quickly when she needed to go with work at short notice. We had to go up to Manchester to sort out though. I can’t remember much else about it…

Thks – a second passport would work in principle but I don’t have the time to arrange it. Good to know for future ref. I’d be on a conference visa so can’t be rushed through in a day apparently.

For China we get our letter of invite then can get a business visa in Manchester same day/next day/few days depending how much you want to pay.

Think there’s an India visa office in brum?