Wednesday, November 16, 2005

Marriage Certificate Attestation for Belgium Dependent visa

I have visited Belgium twice before, once in Nov 2002 (Business Visa) and then in Feb 2003 (work permit visa) both the times my visa was processed by my Indian Employer. No problems at all. Belgium government and I were in good terms :) . But, this time, I was no longer under the Roof of Indian Company. I needed to process things on my own for my stay in Belgium. I was going to be a dependent of my husband. I went to Belgium with my old Belgium stay card and decided to change my status to dependent.

p.s:

1. In Belgium and in most of the EU countries (I guess) if the stay is for more than 3 months, they issue a temporary visa and then we need to register our address in the local commune/town hall and after the police visit & verification of the home address the commune issues a stay card (carte de sejour).

2. Normally the validity of the card is only for a year and we need to renew it every year (first four/five years).


I went to the local commune to change my card status from working –> dependent and also to extend it till Sep 2004. (My old one was valid only till Feb 2004). They asked me to bring my marriage certificate and birth certificate attested by the Belgium Embassy in India (Mumbai/Delhi).

Wow! I at age 25, my Birth certificate was applied for and that was under process (That is another branch story …..hmmmmmmmm). Though, I had the marriage certificate I decided to wait till I get my birth certificate, as I didn’t want to repeat the process of attestation for my birth certificate. Hence the first delay due to Birth Certificate. Once I got the birth certificate, I managed to convince one of my friends in Mumbai and the Travel Agent from X-Company to process it (attestation by Belgium embassy in Mumbai).

1) My father posts the certificates from Trichy to my friend C in Mumbai.

2) C then posts it to Travel Agent in Mumbai :) (internal company post).

3) Travel agent takes those certificates to the Embassy and was told that they need to be attested by the home ministry of my state. That is from secretariat in Chennai(GRRRRRRRR, if they don’t believe the genuineness of the certificate what is the point to have one, for that I can type my own letter saying I married so and so on this date and stuff , they can get them all attested…isn’t it ?)

4) Travel Agent posts it back to C.

5) C posts it back to my father in Trichy.

Poor certificates! How much they travelled ! Their journey continued and doubled…

My certificates are now ready for Chennai sight-seeing :)

6) Certificates are with my friend M and she found that they had to be first attested by an attorney and then Commissioner of Police office verifies his credibility and after all these the “Secretariat office will stamp”. Good for India. But, how come they perfectly issue all the supporting documents for terrorists ;)?

7) My husband’s brother in Chennai took charge now. He got it legalized by a lawyer in Chennai and then took it to Commissioner of Police office in Chennai. Ha!ha! My luck, worked there and the lawyer happened to be registered with “Kanchipuram district”, not under Chennai. So, the certificates were posted to Commissioner of Police office in “Kanchipuram”. No news for weeks. I lost all my hope.

8) My father’s contribution now. He made two trips to Kanchipuram (overnight journey) and then to Chennai and finally “Tamilnadu formalities” were over. (I am sure, my father has got stories to tell about his venture).

9) By then, my friend “C” who was in Mumbai already left to the U.S. My uncle (Dad’s younger brother) from Ahemadabad happily took over:). On receiving the Certificates at Ahemadabad , he traveled to Mumbai (12hrs from Ahemadabad) and finally got them “attested by Belgian Embassy”.

Whose fault is this?

1) By Belgium Foreign office part – its okay, they want to have some confirmation from their own people who are put up in India (Attestation from Belgium Embassy in India). But, why doesn’t Belgium embassy in India, accept my marriage certificate and why did they ask for attestation from my state secretariat?

2) Why the hell didn’t my own state secretariat ask for further attestation by Lawyer and check by commissioner of police?

3) And also, why can't Indian government issue Birth/Marriage Certificates in a common format. The format/size/color al differ from state-state (even from distict -district). Even, if it has to have two languages (state language and English) also, they can issue in same format. But, mostly they are in Enlgish.Grrrrrrrrr..

So, I could have printed my marriage information in a piece of paper and verified all these by above people. Why did we waste quite a amount of time (that’s another stupid 6-8 weeks story) to get Marriage certificate in the first place.

Anyways, finally my Indian part of Belgium dependent visa is over. Belgium events will follow soon.