Pre-approved Indians can skip US immigration queues

NEW DELHI: Similar to the DigiYatra for domestic travellers, a select category of preapproved Indians can now zip through the international arrivals at the US airports through automatic kiosks, bypassing long queues and interviews at the immigration counters.
As part of the US Customs & Border Protection initiative, the Global Entry Program allows pre-approved “low-risk travellers” from India to get a speedy clearance on arrival through automatic kiosks at these international airports.
Started a few years ago, 24,000 applications have been processed, many of them frequent visitors and family members of top bureaucrats, politicians and businessmen, sources said.
But unlike the DigiYatra, where Aadhaar verification is all that you require to skip personal scrutiny from the CISF, the passage through automatic kiosks at the US airports needs a pre-approved applicant to get clearances
from at least 11 Indian intelligence and enforcement agencies much in advance.
An applicant has to apply online on the US Customs and Border Protection’s official website after paying fees of $100 and his application is then forwarded to the ministry of external affairs in India, the coordinating ministry for the purpose.
The MEA then forwards each of the applications to the ministry of home affairs and ministry of finance, the two participating ministries, for obtaining clearances from at least a dozen intelligence and enforcement agencies.

The agencies from which clearances are required, include the Enforcement Directorate, Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, National Investigation Agency, Security and Exchange Board of India, Directorate General of GST Intelligence, Serious Fraud Investigation Office, Income Tax, CBI and the Narcotics Control Bureau. Input is also taken from the ministry of home affairs and its intelligence agencies.
According to the annual report of the department of expenditure, ministry of finance, at least 6,073 applications were processed in 2022-23 alone by Indians seeking clearance for the GEP. Several meetings have since been held with law enforcement agencies and the MEA, to bring down the pendency time which often exceeds six months.
For the convenience of the participating ministries of finance and home, the MEA has built a platform where it uploads all the applications that it receives from the US customs for security clearance.
The finance ministry has made the Central Economic Intelligence Bureau as the nodal agency to generate final approval or rejection reports after running the application through the database.