I wanted to share my experience with Regional Passport office in Pune and in general dos and donts while applying for passports.
We all know that work involving government agencies is full of red tape in India and people often prefer paying hefty amount to agents / brokers rather taking pains to do it themselves. Passport office and getting a passport is no exception. Having said that, my recent experience was not at all bad as far as Pune Regional Passport office is concerned. I applied for Passport in October and got it by mid December(in around 45 working days). Here are some of the important things one should keep in mind while applying for passport:-
Apply online through External Affair ministry’s site(https://passport.gov.in) and get an appointment for yourself.
Visit passport office on the appointment date by early morning, atleast by 10 AM, along with all the required documents(original and 2 sets of photocopies). Make sure you carry all the documents as mandated and applicable, in the list of documents.
Also carry sufficient cash, around 2500/-, as you can be charged additional for damaged passport in case of reissue(which happened in my case, I had to rush to near by ATM). Also in case of Tatkal you need to pay additional charges.
Once you submit the application and do the payment, you get a green receipt which should be preserved for tracking passport status in future(till you get the passport).
You can check the status of the passport online through the same site. But in case after 15 days of applying you see status as application in process or personal particulars send for police verification**, visit your nearest police station and find out if they have received your form for verification. In case they have received your form, expedite the verification process(by all the means as warrantedJ). After 7 days of police verification the passport office will get your clear report. And if you are lucky you will get the passport in another week’s time.
Its not bad idea to visit passport office if your file is not moving at all and you are seeing some junk online status. There are assistant passport officers who are extremely busy but can get your file on table and tell you exact problem. You may also get communication from passport office in case of any issues but usually very late. So it’s better to visit passport office if you want to expedite processing, although it may require taking half day from office if you are working!
And finally try to be at home when the postman visits or have someone at home. Even postman expects some “bakshish” J
So guys finally I wanted to sum up by saying don’t fall into the prey of agents as it is quite unnecessary. Just make sure you have all the documents in place and apply well in advance(2 months at least) before you actually need the passport.