Passport Mess in India

[knmurthy]

This is such a pain
http://tinyurl.com/6myagh6
Murthy

[wanderingwheels]

"I tried to get an appointment for a
month and a half. Then, I paid a travel agent to do it
for me. I contacted him on a Saturday and he got
me an appointment on Monday,"

Sad state of affairs.

I lost my passport in Oct '10 and got a new one in Mar '11. Getting an appointment took a while but thereafter, the process was smooth. Local police asked me to pay 250 bucks as 'fees'. I had travel plans, so, I paid.

[daveiscool]

While the part about getting appointments online is true, its isnt as bad as its made out to be. I tried for a couple of days and managed to book an appointment. I received my tatkaal passport in less than 72 hours. I was really impressed. Mine was reissue and not a fresh passport therefore it was faster I guess. All this in bangalore, not delhi. The PSK are a step in the right direction at least.

[Carpediem]

Btw the Mumbai passport office is managed by one of the arms of Tata and I have heard pretty good things about it. No palm greasing or agent needed. I have yet to get my passport issued so dont have first hand experience.

[bubbu64]

For the first few days I had a hassle getting a online appointment. Once I learnt the modus operandi I decided to stay put when the slots are released for the next day and managed to get a tatkal appointment slot. I got my tatkal passport issued within 7 days. No "fees" and no palm greasing. I had applied at the notoriously corrupt passport office in Secunderabad.

[tobiastarun]

No problems in Bangalore. The website has all the information regarding what documents need to be bought for each scenario. Still I found folks getting wrong documents at the counter. I got my passport renewed within the promised time.

I feel those who want their work to be done in the last minute end up giving bribes and use all monkey tricks to get their work done and in the end somehow feel proud of it.

Plan little in advance, be polite and patient and you will get what you want, at-least at the passport and RTO offices.

[shankarbn]

The online slots usually get filled within an hour of opening up, atleast for Bangalore. The trick is to be awake at 8AM the previous day and apply for the next day. Not that hard, really. If a klutz like me could do it three times, anyone could do it atleast once. Also, the rules are pretty clearly laid out on the website - taking a recent voter ID card and cribbing is just bullshit too.. how hard is it to read the rules properly and take the right documents?

[knmurthy]

Any update on this
http://tinyurl.com/7d4gygl
Murthy

[akashmk]

At the RTO(last month):
I had a name correction done legally, 5 years back. I have most govt. ID's except for passport in the corrected name. Went to the RTO, with all the required docs. One of the officers(read a$$hole*) who verifies and clears the paper work, simply threw the file away. I wanted to bitchslap him, as hard as i could, but couldn't

When I inquired about his sweet & polite behaviour and he say's my SSLC Marks sheet has the old name, hence fucksurd.

Clueless, I waited for 10 mins. Then there was the age old solution of "stoop, lick, beg, all at once", but this overrated sense of dignity, self respect and similar sh!t wouldn't allow me to do that.

I decided to f^<k it and come back with an RTI application to find out what the rule book says, if at all it says anything.

Just before leaving, there was another officer, and i decided to try my luck. After getting myself ready to have the file smacked at my face instead of being thrown away, i went to his table and handed over my file. I didn't utter a word, neither did he. He just signed it.

* When i had applied for an LL 3 years ago, my application was declined and It was the same guy, who declined it. I paid up and it was the very same gentleman who cleared it later. I couldn't get the DL because i was travelling and the LL had expired. I had to go through the entire drill again.

be polite and patient you will get what you want, at-least at the passport and RTO offices.

True, i guess

At the Passport Office(last month):
I was at the final counter getting grilled by the Regional Passport Officer. There was a chappie behind me in the queue. He passed all the counters. I saw him advance until the last counter, where he was asked to comeback with more paperwork (some bank statement i guess)after spending about 5 hours. This part of the conversation, i heard:

Chappie: "I checked with your call center, they said what i carry is fine. Your website says any one of them from the given list and i have it here"
RPO Imbecile: "No in this case we do require"
Chappie: "I have been here all day, you could have declined my form and sent me back at the Application counter itself? I wouldn't have had to wait here all day to be turned down at the end"
RPO Imbecile: "No in this case we do require sir. You can raise a complaint if you want. We can't do anything here"
Chappie: *shrug & smirk* "Yes, you can't do anything"...... one of the best i have seen. He for some reason looked like clint eastwood, promise.

how hard is it to read the rules properly and take the right documents?

Ultra hard, sometimes

However, the RPO process is really sweet when compared to other govt. establishments.

[hitanshu]

I have only the highest regards for the erstwhile delhi rpo and now the psk. The rpo staff have one of the most thankless jobs around so if one pays attention and follows their instructions, life is good.

Even the psk is a nice setup tho it has inefficiencies. Only issue was the morning appt slots - we landed up at 830 for a 9 slot but the rpo staff turned up at 10! But still beats the typical mad queues outside delhi rpo in the old days. And god bless the AC environs

Sent from my HTC ChaCha A810e using Tapatalk 2
PS: with the nos most sarkari office/hosp staff deal with, they will be miserly with their words n sullen no doubt. Most of us would be worse. So when one gets feedback, one should take it positively n STFU. Ofc, that said the rto guys are more corrupt than others so YMMV

[shankarbn]

Any update on this
http://tinyurl.com/7d4gygl
Murthy

Must be a delhi specific problem? Or maybe TOI blowing things out of proportion? For the record, I had taken an almost acceptable record the first time and was promptly sent back home for the right documents. The next time when I went with the right documents, they were more than glad to process my application. It took less than 12 days for my passport to reach me and it wasn't even tatkaal!! The only sad part was I had to pay 100 bucks to a jackass police constable since he thought I should pay up just because I drove up in a car for the police verification.

[Minkey Chief]

You don't have to have lived very long on this earth to know that if a government office ANYWHERE gives you a choice of documents that'll work for them, you carry them all. Not saying this would have solved the problem, but just saying.

[akashmk]

^ Agree

plus some cash..

The copper who came for verification(some 25 days after psk visit, which was 15 days after applying online and a couple of trips to Commissioner's office and local Police station) asked for a copy of all documents. Looks at the voters id and says that it's no longer a valid proof since many forge it. However, he was kind enough to give me 3 choices Electricity bill, Water bill or LPG Bill.

Inspects and rejects them all for below reasons:
Water Bill: Address not printed completely [area, city, pincode missing]
Electricity Bill: Address not printed completely [city, pincode missing] like there is a possibility that i am forging the bills of one Mr.Xxx livin in 2nd floor, 2nd cross, oddly named street, oddly named area in some other bloody metro/city/town
Gas bill: Needs a booklet along with the bill. HP never issues any booklets unlike Indane.

Couple of days pass by and the halli guggu(village idiot) in me wakes up. I went to 'My station' and handed over 500 bucks. All my sins were washed and documents validated.

I know several of my friends who got their passports super quick and a couple of fellas who got it in a week, even though it wasn't tatkaal! - I envy them all.

[knmurthy]

For people who live abroad getting passports renewed or applying for fresh passports at the local high commision would be the best option IMO
I had not paid any one any money when I got my pasport about 9 years ago. Only problem I faced was that the fees was hiked from 500 to 1000
I got the forms on a Friday and the fees was hiked on Monday, luckily all the documents were in order and I got my passport issued in about a month's time
Murthy

[knmurthy]

Another update
http://tinyurl.com/87ynbsg
Murthy

[bubbu64]

It took me just a simple introduction/" I know this guy and his background letter" (verification letter) from the DGP (police) whom I knew well to get the tatkal passport done in just 7 days. Still the post-verification guy who came after 10 days having received my passport at my residence turned up unannounced and I was at the airport picking up my grand mother-in-law (85 yrs old) and I had to drive fast back home because the fu**tard wouldn't have the patience to wait. I had to tell my wife to cajole the guy to hang on with the usual chai/snacks routine to keep him waiting (since you never know whether he would come the next time at all ) but the bugger phoned me a couple of times while I was driving fast back home ( I could have had a accident with his incessant buggering ). Anyway by the time I reached home I was so angry ( I mean really really angry ) that I just abused/blew at him left right and centre. I could see his fallen expression ( he was hoping to make some money in the bargain). Couple of hours later when I had cooled down I realised what a idiot I was to have done that shouting and I was worried that my post verification process would get screwed up. Thankfully nothing of that sort happened.

[hitanshu]

here is an updated data point.

fwiw for my wife or son, there was not one rupee asked. despite my asking if they needed or wanted any! my wife's passport came within 20 days of application at PSK. you CANNOT get better than that in India at the moment, honestly - even the police verification happened on the 3rd day despite it being a sunday.

my cousin had let his daughter's passport expire and his flight was on friday. he got an instant appointment and spoke to the RPO (the RPO) and within 3-4 hours he had a new passport. no DGP police, no tatkal application, nothing. not one rupee taken either. just an earnest honest appeal.

so please, passport office atleast rocks - like i say, far more honest than any other sarkari office and clear procedures. and considering that almost 30-40% of the passports in India get issued for un/barely-educated laborers to go to the gulf/kaneda/italy and where have u. so for someone who deals with such a population on a daily basis, i think they do a fine job.

[deepakvrao]

Used to rock.

When my daughter and I had passports reissued 6 months or so ago, it was great and everything worked fine. Now I have been trying EVERY day at 6pm to get an appointment for my dads re issue, and I can't even get an appointment.

Only in India will they be able to take a working system and screw it up so completely.

[hitanshu]

just as bad as them now deciding to open tatkal bookings at 10am to avoid the system from overloading. Wonder who comes up with such bright ideas!

[deepakvrao]

Finally got the effing appt, and we were in and out in a half hour or less. Senior citizens advantage I guess.

[hitanshu]

but the process works na? atleast old times, you would need half a day and lots of patience in delhi to get it done, no?