LONDON: Britain has temporarily suspended student visa applications from Northern India, Bangladesh and Nepal.

The UK Border Agency, according to a report by a British media, took this step apparently as a precaution to a surge of applications.

According to reports, student visa applications from Bangladesh, Nepal and northern India, have been put on hold for at least a month for now.

British officials were quoted saying that the system had been overwhelmed with the number of applications. There also concerns that many cases were not genuine.

Director of a student counselling agency, also an approved partner of the British high commission in Dhaka, providing counselling services for prospective UK students, confirmed what the UK officials said.

Wishing to remain anonymous, this student counsellor said the high commission had admitted to serious backlogs.

He was not surprised with the suspension either. The student counsellor said, “The UK Border Agency had relaxed its previously stringent rules for student visas last year around April or May.”

According to the new rules prospective applicants only had to provide a proof of funds, sufficient to cover the first year’s tuition and fees, and an acceptance letter from any one of the licenses educational institutions in the UK.

The problem is that many of these licensed parties are actually what they call ‘visa colleges’, which readily issue acceptance letters for nominal fees.

The counsellor said apparently it would be applicants to these colleges that would suffer.

“The reputed universities have their intakes only twice a year, not every month unlike these visa colleges.”

He said, genuine applicants should not have problems for a temporary suspension.

The cousellor, refusing to be named in what he said was a UK government decision, also said the UKBA has cancelled licenses of about 50 such visa colleges, which would surely bring down the number of applications from Bangladesh.

However, he could not be certain if the suspension of student visas would be applicable for the high commission’s approved partners, that are expected to ensure due diligence and whose applications are fast-tracked.