I'll finish my French.
Two visa application centres, in Chandigarh and Jalandhar, facilitate the handling of temporary resident applications. The vast majority of our applicants choose to use these centres.
The visa office in Chandigarh opened in 2004. It's currently staffed by five Canada-based officers and 18 locally engaged staff, supplemented in the summer by Canada-based temporary duty officers.
Our visitor, study, and work permit programs have grown rapidly since the office opened, with the total number of applications doubling since 2004. In 2010, we received close to 35,000 applications, of which 20,000 were visitor applications, almost 13,000 were study permit applications, and over 1,000 were work permit applications. There were also over 1,000 applications for permanent resident travel documents.
The summer peak period for visitor applications coincides with student applications for the September semester and also with the kabaddi program. So even with temporary duty over the summer, it is a challenge for Chandigarh to cope with the volumes over this period. On the other hand, Chandigarh is now increasingly issuing longer-term multiple-entry visas for frequent visitors, which will be more convenient for the clients and will lessen the processing burden on Chandigarh.
The kabaddi and religious worker programs we have in Chandigarh, which are important to the Punjabi community in Canada, require more processing steps and monitoring, thus requiring more resources. In 2011 we received approximately 1,600 applications from religious workers. The number of kabaddi applications in 2011 was 800, doubling last year's number and quadrupling levels from 2008 and 2009. We are working with the gurdwaras and the sports clubs to improve the process, but there are still some issues to be resolved.
To improve efficiency and processing times, we are continually looking for ways to streamline processing. But we are also operating in a high-risk environment where fraud is endemic. Confirmed and suspected fraud is encountered in a high number of cases and in all business lines, that is, those involving visitors, students, and workers. We must factor this fact into our risk management in order to protect the integrity of our programs.
Despite the economic growth in India, push factors from the Punjab are strong. Unscrupulous consultants play on this and actively dupe people into submitting applications with fraudulent documentation. There have even been fake visa officers who have visited villages and posed as consulate staff. Happily, law enforcement authorities in the Punjab are increasingly taking action against such fraudulent activities, and a few consultants have recently been arrested.
I would just like to add that the approval rate for Chandigarh's visitor applications has been slowly increasing to a current average of around 50%.
This is just a quick summary of Chandigarh's operations, but I would be happy to answer any questions the committee may have.