My passport validity was about to expire in a couple of months & I was thinking of renewing it sometime soon. Very recently got to know about ‘Passport Seva Kendra’ & decided to use this newly launched facility to renew my passport. All the information was available on their website about the documents, process, fee structure etc., It was indeed a very smooth option to fill out all the form detail online as well as submitting the same through their website. Also, there was an option to schedule the appointment with passport issuing authority online!
I just had to drop in personally at PSK at a pre-scheduled time with current passport which is about to expire. Well, the other documents included the appointment acknowledgement print out and 2 self attested photo copies from the current passport. Indian Passport I was told explicitly that there is no need to carry photographs as they have set up a digital imaging system to capture photo there itself while processing the form. Also, I was told that the fee for reissue of passport can be paid at the processing counter. All is well until this point.
Well, I had reached the premises and got inside the building upon showing the acknowledgment print out of the appointment. Had to stand in the queue here too to get a token for visiting processing, verification and issual counters. The queue wasn’t moving at all. After an hour one of the official came out and said the servers are down and it may take a while. Later on got to know that the servers were down since 11:30am! Then, one elderly official came to announce that they will switch over to manual mode of passport processing since the servers haven’t been restored and they are not in a position to retrieve the forms that applicants had submitted online. They decided to process those who had filled in forms in hand which weren’t submitted online. Online applicants were told to BUY form (which costs Rs. 10/-) and fill it up, ensure to have passport size photos, then head over to processing counters to get the work done. A fool in me, relying too much on computers had gone there without photos. I had 2 options : Either get the photos and fill up the form all over again manually or visit again some other day hoping to be lucky by then. Since there was a huge crowd and had to attend to work decided for the latter option. Thus a whole day got wasted & I learnt never to rely on the government officials.
To know more about Passport Seva Kendra visit http://www.passportsuchna.com/
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