This is how I got my passport.rewind to the year 2000.
Agent gets the form, we fill er up, agent submits it, the sequence is supposed to be that the passport appl. gets processed, goes to the local police st. from where u get a call for an’interview’, then goes to the CID division, only after approval from there does the passport go to the passport office and then it’s supposed to be mailed or collected by you.
The guys at the passport office screwed up the police st. interview thing, ended up visiting 2 police stations almost 9 times. The wrong police station didn’t send across the documents to the proper one for about a month. No one speaks Hindi at these places, very unhelpful people.
Due to the IA hijacking, CID guys were interrogating and scrutinizing each appl. very intensively, when we reached the CID, we got the impression the officer wanted us to bribe him to expedite the process.Didn’t have the money.didn’t bribe.
3 months passed, no sign of passport. Finally, got hold of one of those agents siting outside the passport office at worli, paid him Rs 3000. He knows officers inside, .got everything expedited and my passport was in my hands in a day and a half.
I’m not suggesting everyone go to those agents(though they are helpful and they know exactly what they’re doing!).
My suggestion is that if you have a departure date in mind, try to apply for your passport REALLY early. ANYTHING could happen to your passport so to take care of all that.apply early. Put in your documents as early as possible and then pray and hope you get your passport early. DO NOT believe people when they say stuff like a new passport in 3 weeks. Better safe than sorry.