‘It happens only in India’ – so goes the refrain. Because we are extra special. Yes we are. In our smugness and in our conceit. In our bloated sense of Self that will stop short of nothing less than the status of the next ‘superpower’ – without anything to show for it though. Wonder where all this actually comes from? Chala Murari Hero Banane. Years ago, we were told, we had colonized Silicon Valley. Our software writers, the best in the world, had placed India in the world map of rising powers. So much had it impressed the leaders of this country that they decided that all their higher education would be geared to producing more and more such labour for the new global economy (no offense meant to the software people). However that is another story. Right now I want to tell a different one – partly out of frustration but partly because I consider it my duty to forewarn others who might be in for a similar experience as mine.
The story of a search for an elusive thing called the passport. Not that I do not have one. I do. And it is valid for a good four years more. But why then do I need one more? Because the pages are exhausted. I of course, do not travel that much but those who do will tell you that even though at the time of application they ask you whether you want a 60 page or a 32 page passport, as a rule they will only give you a 32 page one, regardless of your stated preference. And let us be very clear, the procedure for reissuing a new booklet (for a passport valid even for four or five years) is exactly the same as for getting a new one. People at the passport office are so fond of work that they do not mind duplicating, triplicating and even quadruplicating their work. And they will make you do the same. So here I was, avoiding that frightful trip to the Regional Passport Office that I would have to make anyway, someday. My memories of my past trips are nothing less than harrowing. On top of it, I have been reading stories in the Times of India how with the new online system of filling up forms and seeking appointments has become such a mess that people have been trying for ten, eleven, twelve days every day, in order to get that damn thing called an appointment. And this made my heart quail. But how can you ward off your destiny?
So here I was, suddenly thrown into a situation where I had to move. I was told that now the online system had made it really easy. So, here we go. You go to the home page where you see a picture of Salman Khan Khurshid, the external affairs minister. I must confess that seeing the minister’s face gave me a faint sense of hope that things might work better now that big brother is watching you. In any case, I have realized that only politicians can prioritize the business of getting work done over ‘rules’. The first step is relatively simple – if you use your common sense and DO NOT FOLLOW the instructions (in 8 steps for e-form submission for reissue). I have given the link of the page just in case anyone wants to try it out. If you go by the instructions you might end up with a .pdf or an .xml form that will then have to be uploaded because they have brought you to a point where you can now only do that. If, on the other hand, you simply register and proceed, the first part of filling in the e-form online is a relatively simply affair.
Then step 2 says since payment is now mandatory for seeking an appointment, you have to pay online. When you click ‘Make Payment’ you will be taken to a page that has ONLY ONE LIVE button which says “Generate Challan”. There is a line of blue-coloured text that you might think is a hyperlink that says something like “Please keep your Credit/ Debit Card ready before you start the process of making the payment”. This is just a blue coloured text meant to mislead you perhaps. So you can only click “Generate Challan” and you are warned that by doing this now you will not be able to make payment in any other way. But you aren’t told how you make payment that other way. So I get a State Bank of India Challan that says that any time after three hours of the challan being generated, I can go and deposit the sum at any SBI branch. I go to the local branch some 20 hours after the challan was generated. The lady at the counter and the bank manager were both very sweet and helpful and tried and tried to go to the site and feed in my reference number. Each time they got the message “No Record Found”. They called the office concerned and made various other inquiries and told me, somewhat relieved themselves, that “the data was being uploaded” and that I should wait for another fifteen minutes more. Perhaps, it might be okay after that.
This was it then! The Great Online Service – where you cannot make the online payment (except through one trick, which I will reveal shortly); where the data does not automatically enter the system in whatever time it is supposed to. Some babu of the older times will have to come to the bank at 10 am in the morning to then start manually feeding the data! After the wait, I present myself at the counter again, and again the lady and the manager spend twenty minutes in trying to crack it but to no avail. Finally, I take leave asking the manager if there is any point in my coming tomorrow? He said he would follow up but we should try out the SBI branch in Swasthya Vihar. So, we go there. Two out of three counters are not working and there is a long queue at the third. As we reach the counter, we are told by another helpful lady at the bank who sees the challans and immediately recognizes them and says, “they take one or two days to get into the system” – aap ek do din ke baad aayiyega. Nothing else to be done, we leave for work.
Now the trick for those of you who do want to outsmart this “system” is that you should skip Step 2 (which is ‘Make Payment’) and go straight to Step 3 (‘Make Appointment’ for which the site will tell you that you have to have made the payment but don’t let that bother you). When you click on Make Appointment, you will be asked to select a Passport Seva Kendra and the make the payment. But this is a state secret and I have let it out. Goddamn! Are you listening Sir Salman Khurshid?
And you know what, this is just the beginning. For once the data shows on the bank’s computer and our payment is accepted, the official story is that it will take 48 hours to get activated, only after which can I even try to get an appointment. If three hours can become two days, 48 hours can become three, four or five days – who knows? Then begins the task of seeking an appointment. Ten, or twelve days after that – unless I am lucky and get it in four or five days. So for those who have now learnt the way of getting past all the crap, there is just one more information left: This method does not work for Tatkaal. If you are in a hurry, you can only go the way I am going, spend a week before you can even try to get an appointment.
And while we are at it, let me also tell you that as an honest tax payer who files returns every year, this great nation of software experts continues to fascinate me. Till the year before last, we used to physically file our income tax returns. The form was filled and with form 16, deposited at the IT Office and a stamped photocopy was returned to us. End of the story. Last year they started ‘e-filing’ of returns. Now we have to not only fill an online form and file returns, we then have to wait for a month or two to get an email from the Tax authorities with an attachment. We must now download and print this form and sign it and MAIL IT (yes, snail mail) to Bangalore. Only then does our process get completed.
We are like that only! We want to be the Next Superpower. We will certainly beat China and get there first. Any bets?
KAFILA - COLLECTIVE EXPLORATIONS SINCE 2006 
Salman Khurshid, actually (unless that was meant as a joke).
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Um, isn’t Salman Khurshid the external affairs minister?
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Thanks Avik and Proshant, the error has been corrected – though I do not mind if people think it was a joke:)
Aditya
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I couldn’t finish reading this because the experience is too (painfully) familiar. I am studying in England right now and i renewed my passport in May. when i asked my dad if i should do it in India..his first reaction was “yes you can if you wish to wait for 2-3 months” and the second was “who will pay the bribe to the policemen” (recently my residential address has changed).
in England I had to pay 22 pounds more because my appearance has changed (my previous passport was 10 years old!!!) Anyway, I am happy that i received it within 5 days. And the payment was in hard cash with a receipt!
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I’m bookmarking this so I know what to do when I have to renew my passport…
You can circumvent the snail-mail step by e-filing with something called a “Digital Signature Certificate”. The process is instantly completed.
Of course, getting a DSC requires sending documents via snail mail.
Disclosure: I work with a startup that does taxes
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Going online has brought more overhead than you would have otherwise thought. And this is true even for non-government sites. Take online banking. For most part, if you have to transfer certain amount from your bank account to someone else’s or make a payment you have to complete your online transaction, then wait for an SMS in your pre-registered cell phone and confirm the same to complete it.
This second level verification is an excess overhead. Question is why is it so?
Apart from poor website & process designs (which is a trademark of government) I think in India we may not have good encryption systems that would ensure secure transactions. Which is why banks (in particular) would introduce secondary verification and sometimes even limiting online access to circumvent this security threat problems. I won’t be surprised if a similar argument is issued for the complicated e-filing of returns.
I believe that in countries like USA/Canada the banks use military grade encryption protocols for even commercial transactions like credit card payments at your groceries.
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Cool story bro
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This is the story of an operation that involves payment of money but it is the same story in the case of non monetary operations like the famous Aadhaar card that was being presented as the panacea for all ills.
I know of at least two people who have been to two different locations and have had their finger prints taken and their retina photographed and yet they have not received their Aadhaar cards, Not only this when they went the second time their details should have shown up in the central records but did not.
This certainly opens up the possibility that someone is walking around with the Aadhaar Card of Shyam Singh Adhkari (one of the two mentioned above) while he is being made to re apply again and again
.In another instance the document that was earlier accepted as valid proof of identity was rejected by the jokers who were accepting the forms at the second location.This person had to go a second time because he checked on the net and was told that his application for the Adhaar card had been rejected and he should re-apply.
It is not only the passport form but any document that has to be filled on line and you come to the same sticky end
this is not restricted to government departments alone
BSES refuses to correct spelling mistakes in the electricity bill that they send me and have not done it for 5 years, despite repeated reminders
Tata Photon, can’t seem to get my Father’s name right, why they need it in the first place is something that escapes me utterly.
You are right. We Are Like That Only
Super Inefficient,
Super Arrogant
Super Jingoist
Super Patriotic
but we have great potential
and the world is afraid of what we might do
We won the Champions Trophy Did We Not?
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True that !!!
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The problem my dear is we Indians have multiplied like rats and produced one too many(over population, we are 1.25 billion now). Our systems have limited bandwidth. Look at the IRCTC website and you get an idea how many are trying for cheap travel. It takes time for systems to be put in place. Instead of complaining be the change that you want to see around you. I really appreciated it(your post) because this raises the awareness. Unless we know where we need to improve we will not improve.
The future is e-governance. We need people in the government who are tech savvy and rejig the Government-to-People interface. If you know about e-governments foundation, those are the kinds of organizations that are required. See what they did for property/municipal tax collections. Selfless service and sacrifice is needed.
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You should have directly contacted the DALALs of passport offices, everything would have done quickly, perhaps you don’t have to write this article as well!
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I had a positive instance with the new system. Although I was skeptical regarding the duration it would take my entire process for passport renewal took just 20 days. The most frustrating aspect was getting an since there used to be limited slots/day which used to get over within couple of minutes. You could draw parallels with IRCTC ticket booking online. However I hear the online booking has been slightly revamped for the better. Nonetheless my experience surprisingly was a good one. Factors such as police etc. cannot be pinned on the passport authorities.
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I think there are also unrealistic expectations on the part of some applicants. The same people who would uncomplainingly wait 8-12 weeks for their US passport renewal find it unbearable to wait the same time for their Indian passport. I am not referring to the writer of this article but in general, many people want their cases “expedited” when it comes to the Indian government but are quite docile about similar rules for other countries.
As for TCS being an intermediary, I would say that is a very good thing. They can keep applicants informed about the process and the next steps. The only time I was frustrated was when I went to the Passport Office in Delhi years ago and became one of the hundreds of people milling around not knowing what to do because nobody was there to tell us. Perfect scenario for bribe-takers and cunning middlemen promising expedited passports. Better to insert that middle layer officially. It’s called project management, and I am so glad the Indian government is finally realizing its importance in any large scale endeavour.
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Whats amazing is that the passport seva kendras are now run by Tata Consultancy Services. So the country has outsourced its biggest responsibility- giving poeple citizenship, to a corporation!
Anyway, TCS running the seva kendras has made nothing better. My only confusion this time was wether the bribe was going to the government officials or to the TCS employees.
its hopeless.
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We are like that only.For this present situation no one except we ourselves to be blamed. We are sending the same set of people with demonic mentality to Assembly and parliament year after year after year.These same set of people have mustered the art of squeezing out every drop of blood from our mind and body .To day 29th June 2013 I went through a story appeared in an assamese news paper “Amar Asom ” published from Guwahati- which is as follows.One Md. Muktadir Ali Talukdar aged 84 years of Pub Bandari village under Hojai Police station of Nagaon District ,Assam has sent a request to the Hon’ble Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court seeking permission to bribe the police to get his Passport.Mr. Ali applied for passort in the Regional Passport Office and passport office sent the documents to the Nagaon dist police for verification but as Md. Ali Talukdar did not bribe and brough the matter to the notice of the SP Nagaon, who in return promised him to look into the matter.But nothing happened.Alis verification papers were not sent to the Regional Passport Office last year and hence passport office closed the file without further action. As a result Md Muktadir Ali Talukdar could not go to Haj last year and that’s the reason why he is seeking permission from the Ho’ble Chief Justice of Gauhati High Court to allow him to bribe the police. Yes – “Mera Desh Mahan ” Sare
Jahan se achha “
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I applied for re-issue of passport on 3rd April 2013. I got the passport on 4th July 2013 i.e. after 3 months. I went directly without engaging an agent. I am told that if you go via an agent, you have to pay Rs. 3000 which is distributed as follows: Rs. 1500 for the passport renewal fee; Rs. 500 each to the passport officer, the policeman and the agent. If you do this, you will get the passport in 1 month. Otherwise, like me, you will have to wait for 3 months and will be called to the Police Station six times.
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I just got a new booklet. I did not find any such problem. Worked smoothly in Bangalore. Right from website to passport office to police verification at local police station, everything was smooth. probably TCS can do a better job at passport office, other than that pretty OK. No bribes needed to be paid. Yes there is duplication. We upload documents, carry same document to the passport office and then submit the same thing to police for verification !! So it can be made better, but I won’t say it was that painful.
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