Newzealand opened for tourist visa in Jul 2022 after COVID-19. So the processing times were shooting up and showing 51 days P90. I wasn't having hopes of receiving a visa for my potential trip in later in the year. I decided to give it a go anyway. Took me around 3 hours to figure all the documentation and apply for the visa. I made a tentative itinerary with potential trip to Fiji from Auckland.  

Timeline

• Applied on Friday. Paid ~140 USD visa fee. Fortunately they changed the process to not require sending passport due to influx of applications and speed up the processing. They will only ask passport if required. If I had to send passport, it would have costed additional $100 for VFS + Return Courier in US. The same was around 1000 INR if applying in India.
• Received e-visa on next Wednesday. Pleasantly surprised. Not sure if my US visa helped with the quick processing.

Visa Information

• Multiple entry for 1 year from date of issue, max 6 months per stay.
• Total processing time - 6 days.
• Total cost - USD 140.