So, I've posted about this earlier and Aneesh KS, a member of the expat-blog community has helped me a lot since then. He has been kind enough to be in touch with me personally and reply to me every single time I've asked him something. (Thanks for that, Aneesh)
The point behind posting this is sharing my experience until now and further, and to ask a few more people what their experiences were with the application of a B Work Permit.
I'm from India and my firm is in Ghent. After a lot of paperwork drafting contracts etc (1 month), they applied for my work permit on the 16th of May. Since Ghent falls in Flanders, the website for my labour department is Werk.be. The work permit category they've applied for me is the 6º Highly skilled worker, the details of which are here.
Now, accounting for all the public holidays in Belgium, Monday, the 27th of May happened to be the 6th working day since my work permit has been applied for. I do understand that I'm getting a little ahead of myself by getting anxious already, but the page at http://www.werk.be/online-diensten/werk … -en-de-arb clearly says that the work permit is delivered to the employer within ten working days of the date of application (it is a little baffling to read within). Moreover, from all the research I've done I do understand that highly skilled immigration is favoured by the Belgian government (yes, I've even read some studies on Belgium's immigration policies which clearly state that the legislations in Belgium are most favourable in Europe for highly skilled immigration and the process of work permit issue is highly accelerated in the government offices despite the complexity.) All the research I've been through, I've only come to know that in theory, the work permit application takes 10 or less working days. But I've not had much validation about it. I have also been told that unlike in India, government related paperwork in Belgium always happens exactly on time.
What I'm still in the dark about is how much longer should I expect this to take? If some more of you have gone through the same process, it'll be very helpful for me if you can share how long it took for you. I am getting quite anxious about having a fixed date in mind about being there. Ideally, given the kind of time I've already spent on the process, I'm really hoping I can fly by the 2nd/3rd week of June. Please also note that since I am my firm's first international hire, the paperwork and time I've already been through has made me very impatient and anxious now. (the date of the job offer and the date of application of the work permit are one month apart)
I'd really like some clarity on this.