US looks East, to expand India base

Washington: The US embassy and consulates in India may soon expand, according to a State Department plan.

The revamp is intended to take note of growing Asian powers like India and China.

According to the restructuring plan announced recently by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at Georgetown University in Washington DC, about a hundred foreign service posts will be transferred from Europe to Asia and the Middle East.

It is expected that out of the 74 new US diplomatic positions, 15 will be in China. India will get 12 new posts, seven of them in New Delhi.

Rice said the restructuring was essential to reflect the changing world order.

"For instance, we have nearly the same number of State Department personnel in Germany, a country of 82 million people that we have in India, a country of one billion people. It is clear today that America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world. So over the next few years, the United States will begin to shift several hundred of our diplomatic positions to new critical posts for the 21st century," says Rice.

State Department officials say the lists of initial closures and additions are just the beginning of a major rearrangement plan.

The programme could affect a large section of the 6,400 Foreign Service positions.

So far, the State Department is not saying if the transfer of personnel to US consulates in India has anyway help clearing the massive backlog of visa applications. Currently, thousands of applications are stuck in the system simply due to shortage of staff.