Pilot - Whats an Apostille and how to get it (India)

An Apostille is basically a stamp of legal authenticity and acceptance given by your home country and the stamp is recognized by a few set of countries. I am sure you can read Wikipedia about the origins of the Apostille Convention in 1961. I had not known or even thought about something called an apostille until I was applying for a particular country's visa. The visa requirements asked for subsmission of degree certificates that were apostilled by the issuing country. In my case, the degree certificates were issued from IIT Guwahati in Assam (north east India). At that time, I was based outside of India working for a company. I took to the internet for almost 40 hrs of browsing to find the head and tail of the apostille. The issuing authority for the apostille in India is the MEA (ministry of external affairs).

What you will find on the internet: 

Visit the MEA site and you will find that this is a two step process. Firstly it advices to get the certificates signed by the state government (technical education board) from where the degree was issued. Secondly, the certificate will need to be submitted to MEA office in New Delhi for final stamping. For Assam, the technical education board is located in Guwahati. Then, also you will find on the internet are lots of virtual man services and notaries/legal agencies who claim they will get an apostille done with none of the above hassles. There are few blogs written by some friendly people who probably were in my shoes. 

Then I called up the Assam Bhavan in New Delhi. I asked the magistrates office and asked if he could help. A long voice woke up to my phone call and he did not have any idea about an apostille. He instead directed me to another phone number. The lady whom i talked to was probably an attendant or similar. She was  of no help either. I was wondering if I need to take a break from work for about 2-3 weeks and travel to India. 

After much thought and sourcing over the internet, I found one virtual service website yourmaninindia who said he would help. They suggested the same above that it was a two staged process and would take anywhere between 3-5 weeks. The price tag was also hefty. Somehow I was not keen on using their service after reading a few reviews.

Then I called up atleast 4 different agencies that I looked up over the web. Out of all, I was impressed with alliedlegal . They have a very responsive online chat facility that answered all my queries. - do you do apostille services? How long does it take? Is it a two stage process? Is it a legal way of doing it?  All said I decided to send my documents over to allied legal and believe it their service is just excellent. They sent notification at every stage of the process. They promised a 10 day turnaround and exceeded expectations when i had the documents apostilled in 8 days. Yes the price tag was heavy but the quality of service was there. There is always an uncertainty when you send document over courier to external parties. But that is the risk

I took sitting abroad and in an effort to save up on air travel costs and time.

So after all this stress with Apostilles, I question why is our government not making life easier. Simple things like attestations can also be easily automated using IT services. I read some other reviews saying that the information on the MEA page was outdated. In fact, a few phone numbers on the MEA site are indeed are not functional. Also, it is apparently not needed to get a state government authentication. Saves time. A subdivisional magistrate sitting in New Delhi has the acting authority to review. If certificates are issued by renowned institution like IITs or BITS, I don't think there is a need for first stage approval from state governments. Anyways I hope this article is useful and saves on some stress.