Dhaka, July 27 - Despite India issuing half a million visas annually to Bangladeshis, the serpentine queues outside its high commission every day have been called worthy of a place among the Guinness World Records.

What complicates the issue is that about 25,000 of the Bangladeshis who get the visa each year do not return home, as Indian High Commissioner Pinak Ranjan Chakravarty said last week.

The figure, diplomatic sources say, is based on statistics gathered from the border check posts and all entry-exit points.

A member of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) last week said that queues of visa seekers outside the Indian High Commission 'would find a place in the Guinness Book of World Records'.

It may seem a typical South Asian hyperbole, but it underscores the problem's seriousness.

About a decade back, over 350,000 Bangladeshis availed Indian visas a year. The number is growing and is bound to grow further with increasing interaction between the two South Asian neighbours, analysts say.

The queue of visa seekers often shows harrowing sights -- a sick person on a wheelchair or mourners seeking to attend the funeral of a relative in India.

There are other reasons for wanting to go to India -- a wedding in a Bangladeshi middle class home is incomplete without Benarasi saris and other goodies purchased in India. Many people also find it convenient to seek medical treatment in India.

In 2008, visas were issued to 255,696 individuals for visiting relatives and pilgrimage; 55,489 for medical treatment; 6,786 for business which includes significant proportion of long-term multiple entry visas, and 2,374 for students.

Overall, in 2006, 2007 and 2008, the total number of visas issued by the high commission was 472,644, 481,064 and 523,322 respectively.

Leaving out weekends and holidays, it would work out to about 2,600 visas issued daily from visa offices in Dhaka, Rajshahi and Chittagong.