Tuesday, March 1 2005 20:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Starting March 8, US passport application fees will be costlier by $ 12 and a person applying for L-1 visa will have to pay an additional $ 500 fee.

These are part of new charges for consular services in American diplomatic missions in New Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata.

Persons applying for blanket L-1 visa will have to pay $ 500 "fraud prevention and detection fee" at the time of submitting their papers. This fee should be paid via bank draft for Rs 22,000 made out to the American embassy or to the American Consulate General where the applicant would be applying, the US embassy at New Delhi said.

The fee does not apply to any spouse or children applying for a L-2 visa.

A surcharge of $ 12 is being added to the current US passport application fees. This fee will be used to increase border security by strengthening the security of the passport adjudication process and the physical passport itself. It will be used to support the issuance of newly redesigned passport containing new security features.

One of these is the addition of a biometric identifier. A chip will be embedded in the cover and will contain the same information that appears on the data page, including the bearers picture as the biometric.

Another surcharge of $ 45 will be added to the current fees for immigrant visas, making the new total fee to $ 380.