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Passport Seva Kendra is a great Initiative
Written By nisgupta - 22 September, 2010
Bangalore governance Review seva Kendra passport renewal passport reissue
All, I recently visited passport seva kenra in the outer ring road and I cannot describe how pleased I am wit the overall experience. I think both TCS and MEA officials are doing a great job in this project, details below:
17/08/2010:
Decided to have my passport reissued, the reasons were:
All, I recently visited passport seva kenra in the outer ring road and I cannot describe how pleased I am wit the overall experience. I think both TCS and MEA officials are doing a great job in this project, details below:
17/08/2010:
Decided to have my passport reissued, the reasons were:
- Existing Passport had my Old address which was in different city and state, and it is always advisable to keep your adress up to date.
- Existing Passport did not have my spouse name.
- It was slightly damaged(Not beyond recogonition)
I filled up the form online passportindia.gov.in, everything was self explainatory. After filling and submting the form you can book an appointment, I got the appointment for 7/9/2010.
One can optionally load the supoporting documents, by I decided to skip this part as I did not have scanner at home.
7/9/2010:
Went to PSK in ORR, Bangalore with the required set of documents here , My scheduled apointmet was @ 2:30. Went there at 2:15, Plz go there only 15 mins before your schedule appointment time otherwise you wont be allowed inside. as soon as I entered I was assigned a token number. (The whole PSK office was notihng like a government office, It was Air conditioned with comfortable seating facilities, clean toilets, xerox machine an tea/coffe facility)
Once you are assigne a token the flow will be as follows counter-A --> counter-B --> Counter-C --> Exit.
After wating for only 5 mins I was escorted towards counter A, This part is handled by TCS and they are very corial and helpful. They will check/scan/upload all your documents and also collect the requsite fees. Mine was a damaged passport case so I had to pay 1000(reissue chanrges) + 1500(fine) = 2500/-. (Plz note mine was a normal case and not tatkal)
After all formalities were over at counter A, I was back to wating room and wait began for Counter B, for this I had to wait another 30 mins. counter B is for VO(verification Officer) and I think this is manned by government officials. I spent only 5 mins here and he checked the documents again.
After counter B I had to wait another 4 mins for my turn for counter C which is for GOs(Granting officers) and this is for sure manned by government officers. GOs has the final say if you passport is granted or should be refused. after all the checks/verification done at counter A and B chances that GO will reject your application is next to Nill.
Another important decesion that is taken by GO is wether your case qualify for Pre, Post or No police verfication. Mine was a reissue case with change in address so i qualified as a post verfication. the main diffrence between these modes are:
Pre verfication: Clear report from the police is required for your case to move forward
Post verfication: Police verfication is required, but clear report from the police is not required an processing of your application can start immidiately and you can even have yourpassport before the verfication(although i am not sure what will happen if one recieves his/her passport and police report is not clear)
No verfication: self explainatory :)
After counter C you can immidiately head towards exit where you would be given a acknowledgement letter with case status (Granted/Peding/refused etc) and verficaiton mode(Pre/Post/No). Mine was granted and post verfication.
Immidiately went to my office and checked the status the status was 'you will recieve and SMS/Email nce the passport is dispatched'.
14/09/2010
recived the call frommy local police station to come for verfication, this got me confused as mine was a post-verficaiton case and I had not yet recieved my passport yet, but later relaized that post-verfication just ment that issue of Passport is not wating on any police verifcation which can happen anytime.
20/9/2010
Recieved the SMS and Email that passport has been dispatched thru spped post with tracking number
21/9/2010
got the passport in just around 10 working days.
I would have to say a Big thumbs up for TCS(No I dont work for TCS :) ) and Government for such a great initiative.
Hope this helps others, Plz leave a comment if you have any questions, I will try to answer them based on my experience.
COMMENTS
arunvishvin - 13 October, 2010 - 05:54
Why there is a fine of Rs1500 put for your application???
ananth.bangalore - 13 October, 2010 - 06:38
Experiences such as this creats lots of hope. Thanks.
nisgupta - 14 October, 2010 - 07:48
@Arun, My old passport was damaged(water Damage), hence Rs1500 fine, I did not understand the logic and told them that anyway they are giving a new passport to change other information so why charge Rs1500. but rule is a rule I guess :)
@Ananth, yes, before I went to PSK, I saw a lot of negetive publicity about this new system, but my experience was very plesent.
ananth.bangalore - 14 October, 2010 - 09:49
Based on the experience posted here, i embarked upon renewing my passport through the site.
I couldn't use the e-form from the site because i was unable to enter a. the full description of the 'identification mark' and b. my existing address. Seems like these entries have a cap on number of characters, which obviously has not been researched through.
So next, i tried to register myself and do this online. After registering, when login in, i got a message that the page was not trusted and the portal "portal2.passportindia.gov.in" uses an invalid security certificate and someone could be impersonating as that portal. I use firefox and i have never had this issue as long as i can remember and it is happening with that site alone. Now i may not be an IT techie, but am sure not going to endanger myself. Either nisputa bypassed this the browser did not throw this up, but the point is, this shouldn't have happened especially in a government site.
Just when i thought i would be able to finish some work that involves government agencies without a problem, there it was! Guess i got carried away, should have known better.
Guess i was too eager to acknowledge things were ok in my last post.
Will go to Bangalore One to do this.
@nisgupta, fine and re-issue charges dont make sense. Makes one wonder whos earning.
Also, like murli pointed out, this software might have been developed by a third party private company, i am guessing they worked as hard as they got paid (actually and not as per books). My opinions only.
outsourcing - clearly the way forward
murali772 - 23 September, 2010 - 05:48
I hope this will put paid to the rants against outsourcing by the status-quoists - check this
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