yes i agree with usunnyslietian said:There is no role of ftd ,initial app and noc . There is not a single visa officer who process our files.They queue up our files in order of 2nd aor n clerk allocate it to different visa officers after screening it .now it's our luck to which vo our files goes ,what's his/her style of working slow or fast ?,how he is doubt ful?, how much investigation he will carry ? All these factors decide processing time ...
to add further...
i think the degree of randomness is about a month, n there may be a methodological pattern rather than VO playing GOD........
suppose if there are 4 clerks(VO officials) working to finish up files of 1 month or 100 cases(may vary)...
n they distribute cases in lots of 25 each.......n cases from 76 to 100 alloted to 4th clerk tend to have time-line similar to the cases handled by first clerk.......means 1 to 25..........
this way it sounds logical to me otherwise the whole system can be questioned and the possibility of VO officials taking bribe to make it faster for some individuals cannot be ruled out........ :-X :-X :-X