The new online service launched by Govt of India through the Passport Seva kendras (PSK) for application of Passports is just amazing & incredible. It was just a great experience for me. I got my new passport just after 20 days of my appointment at the PSK. I had applied for a re-issue due to some changes in personal data in my existing passport. I had applied to PSK, Outer Ring Road, Bangalore. I had never thought that the old cumbersome process of getting a Passport from the
Passport Office have changed so much in a good direction. Though there are couple of bad points still exist in the system but overall it was just a very happy experience for me. Here I am writing my experience -
Good Points -
1 - Online Application. No need to take a off from work, go to the Passport office & stand in a queue. You can apply for a fresh or a re-issue of a passport through internet.
2 - Book the appointment at your convenient Passport Seva Kandra(PSK) is also done online.
3 - Most of the information about the documents that you need to carry while going to appointment with the passport officials is available on the website passportseva.gov.in
4 - The staff at the PSK are friendly & young. So they process & do the work quickly.
5 - The ambience of the PSK is very nice & has equipped with new technologies. Office is very neat & clean. The most important thing is theer are plenty of
counters(around 20-25) to serve the demand. So you don’t need to wait for very long. You will have to go to 3-4 counters as part of complete verification
and approval of your application. It will take around 1.5 hours for the whole process to complete in the PSK.
6 - The counter numbers against the token numbers (Every one will be given a token after initial clearance of his/her documents) are always get displayed on big LCD screens. It will feel like you are inside a private bank such as ICICI or HDFC bank.
7 - No need to carry your passport photos along with you unlike in old days. The photo will be taken in digital camera in one of the counters itself. They will also scan your documents in front of you & keep them in their database for their reference. The scanning machines are too fast.
8 - Then after only 2 days I got a call from the police station to go there & appear for the verification. I was asked to take a photocopy of the same address proof that I had submitted at PSK along with photo copies of my old passport and two passport photos.
9 - I went there and it went smoothly. Had to fill up a form 7 submitted the documents. Within 20-25 mins I was out of the police station.
10- Exactly after 17 days of my appointment at PSK I got a sms that my passport has been dispatched through Speed Post. It also contained information about the speed post consignment number in order to track the movement of the passport.
11- Finally I got my passport on Day-20.
Notes - The postman will not give the passport to anybody except you, not even to your spouse or parents. So in my case it returned to the post office. The post man gave me a call asking me to collect it from the post office.
Bad Points -
1 - The worse part of this nice tale is getting the appointment slot for the interview at PSK. Since the demand is very high they are not able to give you appointments whenever you wish. It is like a tatkal booking for train tickets where there is huge rush to get the tickets as soon as it opens online & the seats gets exhausted within 30 mins. In this case also you will need to try your luck every evening from 6:00PM to 6:30/6:45PM to book your slot. It took me around 15 days to get my appointment at PSK, Bangalore. Once you get the appointment then all other process will be smooth if you have the correct set of documents.
2 - The most difficult part related to documents is address proof. The website on some points does clearly mention about them. Example - It says that Gas bill can be produced as your address proof. But when I showed the same at the PSK thay asked me to show the Gas Connection book as well. This is not mentioned in the website. So they asked me whether I have any other proof of address to show them. Luckily I had also taken my 1 year bank transactions (ICICI Bank) along with the address proof letter signed & sealed by the bank officials. They accepted it. Remember they will not accept the online statement. You need to go to the bank & get the transactions printed & signed with the bank seal. So better to go to the PSK with additional address proofs.
3 - PSK business hours is MONDAY-FRIDAY. They are closed on Saturday. So the corporate and IT people don’t have a choice to go there on a Saturday which is off for them. Still it is a very nice & incredible service that is offered by the Govt of India.
Thanks
Ayaskant
Bangalore