Venkat Raman
Auckland, September 4, 2024
The office of the new Consulate General will open in Auckland tomorrow (September 5) and will function temporarily at Mahatma Gandhi Centre, 145 New North Road, Eden Terrace.
While Consul General-Designate Dr Madan Mohan Sethi is yet to arrive in New Zealand, the office will be run by Sanjeev Kumar (Consul) and Divya (Vice Consul).
They can be contacted via email respectively at hoc.auckland@mea.gov.in and admn.auckland@mea.gov.in.
India’s High Commissioner (currently Neeta Bhushan) is the plenipotentiary overseeing all officials of the Mission in the country.
A notification issued today said that the Office of the Consulate General in Auckland will commence with the attestation of documents and later start providing full consular services including issue and renewal of Passports, Visas and Overseas Citizenship of India.
The office will accept applications between 9.30 am and 1 pm and issue documents between 4 pm and 5 pm. These services will be available from Monday to Friday except on notified holidays, available on the High Commission website.
“The services at the Honorary Consul Office at 133A Onehunga Mall, Auckland, will be discontinued from Thursday, September 5, 2024,” the notification said.
The decision to open a full-service office of the Consulate General in Auckland was taken by the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 27, 2023.
“Opening of Consulate General of India in Auckland would help in increasing India’s diplomatic footprint and strengthen India’s diplomatic representation given India’s increasing global engagement. This will also help promote India’s strategic and commercial interests and better serve the welfare of the Indian community in Auckland,” Mr Modi’s office said in a Statement.
Dr Sethi, a career diplomat, who held a similar position at the Consulate General’s Office in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam is expected to arrive in New Zealand shortly.
Born in the Khurda District of Odisha, he graduated in Medicine and worked at various government hospitals in Odisha before joining the Indian Foreign Service in 2006.
After the first assignment as an Attache at the BSM (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Maldives) Division of the External Affairs Ministry, he served in Yangon and Mandalay (Myanmar), Rome and in New Delhi.
Dr Sethi has represented India at the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and World Food Programme (WFP) and worked as Director, the Central Europe Division.
Married to Swagatika Bhuyan, the couple has two sons.
Farewell Durga Dass
News is also at hand that Durga Dass (Second Secretary in charge of Press, Information, Culture and the Indian Diaspora) at the High Commission in Wellington has been posted to the Indian High Commission in Pretoria, South Africa.
He is set to leave Wellington with his wife Deepa on September 19, 2024.
During his four-year tour of duty in New Zealand, Mr Dass won the hearts of thousands of people by helping them with speedy access to the services of the High Commission. These include the issue of visas, issue of passports, OCI Cards and related services. He has also assisted mourning families by coordinating efforts with various agencies to send the dead bodies of Indian nationals back to India. He has been a friend of the media in updating services, visits of ministers and officials from India and providing information on various matters from time to time. The Indian Diaspora is grateful to him for his advice and guidance.
We wish him success in his diplomatic career.
