To directly go to Part-1 of the story Click here
To go to Part-2 of the story Click here
I was in huge uncertainty till 10th April when the status on passport seva portal revealed that my passport is out for printing. On 21st April I got a mail that my passport is being dispatched and finally on 25th April I received 'THE PASSPORT' after 9 months of complete frustration.
This is not only mine's story, this is also the story of many others like me. One of my friends recently got the passport after 8 months, one got in 6 months and a friend of mine also obtained in 25 days. This shows that the number of days also depends on the location of your respective Regional Passport Office. My case was involved with Lucknow and most of the delayed cases which I heard of are dealt by Lucknow office and the cases where passport are delivered within 1 month are dealt with Jaipur Office. The data which I found on the website of Passport Seva left me shocked. It says that on a pan India basis, 68% of normal passports are dispatched within 7 days and 90% are dispatched within 15 days [This excludes the time taken for police verification].In the case of Tatkaal passports, 73% are dispatched within 3 days and 96% are dispatched within 7 days. Also the average number of days taken to complete the police verification process is 51 and 36% of the requests are verified within 21 days. Some States have consistently maintained low Police Verification processing times. For example, Delhi completes police verification in 12 days on an average and 100% of the PVs are completed within 21 days. Chandigarh has an average of 16 days with over 90% PVs getting completed within SLA period. Andhra Pradesh too completes within 16 days and 83% of the PVs are completed within 21 days.
I am not sure whether these figures are correct or not or correct up to which extent. I have filled RTI request on the number of days it took to complete the process in every state and waiting for the answers from the ministry. As soon as I will get the results, I will make it open but one thing that become quite clear from all these data and the practical evidence which I have is that it is possible to get the normal passport within 20-25 days and tatkaal passport within 5 days. When TCS was given the opportunity in 2006 with the PPP model for the passport project, it was projected that Normal passport will take 15 days to process and 'Tatkaal' within 2 days, Although this seems to be a nightmare but not impossible.
Suggestions
When PSK were established in 2011, it was proposed to make the whole process online including Police verification which is half attained till now. Police Verification was proposed to get completed within 2 weeks which is also kind of impossible in various states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. TCS says that it is the PV which get delayed, otherwise they process the application immediately they receive and sometimes courier takes some days to reach which increases the time taken in the whole process. Courier included first couriering the application to the Regional office from where it is sent to respective police station. From there it again goes to regional office and then to printing and after that it is couriered to the applicant. So the whole process is long which definitely going to take the time. One effort made to reduce the pendency at Police is to use District Verification Model which is being used by 344 Districts of 722 Districts. Police should be made more accountable in the delay cases which will also reduce the corruption cases.
One more process which is responsible to increase the time is the date of appointment. In some states where the population is more in comparison to other like Uttar Padesh there are more applications filed for the passport as the number of people going for Haj are also more, so TCS should increase the number of PSKs and Regional offices in UP so that appointments are made available more easily and early.
People sitting at the official level should be trained to acquire user friendly skills as the one I experienced was very harsh behavior which nobody expects and they should also be checked for attending the calls, replying to the mails and listening peoples query. Status at the Portal should also be updated regularly and more precisely so that person get to know where is the application stuck and how much more days it will take to process it. Robust Governance and effective management plays a crucial role in improving the system which is necessary in this case also.
We all want and hope that in the coming years the process will become smoother, less time consuming and user friendly.
To go to Part-2 of the story Click here
I was in huge uncertainty till 10th April when the status on passport seva portal revealed that my passport is out for printing. On 21st April I got a mail that my passport is being dispatched and finally on 25th April I received 'THE PASSPORT' after 9 months of complete frustration.
This is not only mine's story, this is also the story of many others like me. One of my friends recently got the passport after 8 months, one got in 6 months and a friend of mine also obtained in 25 days. This shows that the number of days also depends on the location of your respective Regional Passport Office. My case was involved with Lucknow and most of the delayed cases which I heard of are dealt by Lucknow office and the cases where passport are delivered within 1 month are dealt with Jaipur Office. The data which I found on the website of Passport Seva left me shocked. It says that on a pan India basis, 68% of normal passports are dispatched within 7 days and 90% are dispatched within 15 days [This excludes the time taken for police verification].In the case of Tatkaal passports, 73% are dispatched within 3 days and 96% are dispatched within 7 days. Also the average number of days taken to complete the police verification process is 51 and 36% of the requests are verified within 21 days. Some States have consistently maintained low Police Verification processing times. For example, Delhi completes police verification in 12 days on an average and 100% of the PVs are completed within 21 days. Chandigarh has an average of 16 days with over 90% PVs getting completed within SLA period. Andhra Pradesh too completes within 16 days and 83% of the PVs are completed within 21 days.
I am not sure whether these figures are correct or not or correct up to which extent. I have filled RTI request on the number of days it took to complete the process in every state and waiting for the answers from the ministry. As soon as I will get the results, I will make it open but one thing that become quite clear from all these data and the practical evidence which I have is that it is possible to get the normal passport within 20-25 days and tatkaal passport within 5 days. When TCS was given the opportunity in 2006 with the PPP model for the passport project, it was projected that Normal passport will take 15 days to process and 'Tatkaal' within 2 days, Although this seems to be a nightmare but not impossible.
Suggestions
When PSK were established in 2011, it was proposed to make the whole process online including Police verification which is half attained till now. Police Verification was proposed to get completed within 2 weeks which is also kind of impossible in various states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. TCS says that it is the PV which get delayed, otherwise they process the application immediately they receive and sometimes courier takes some days to reach which increases the time taken in the whole process. Courier included first couriering the application to the Regional office from where it is sent to respective police station. From there it again goes to regional office and then to printing and after that it is couriered to the applicant. So the whole process is long which definitely going to take the time. One effort made to reduce the pendency at Police is to use District Verification Model which is being used by 344 Districts of 722 Districts. Police should be made more accountable in the delay cases which will also reduce the corruption cases.
One more process which is responsible to increase the time is the date of appointment. In some states where the population is more in comparison to other like Uttar Padesh there are more applications filed for the passport as the number of people going for Haj are also more, so TCS should increase the number of PSKs and Regional offices in UP so that appointments are made available more easily and early.
People sitting at the official level should be trained to acquire user friendly skills as the one I experienced was very harsh behavior which nobody expects and they should also be checked for attending the calls, replying to the mails and listening peoples query. Status at the Portal should also be updated regularly and more precisely so that person get to know where is the application stuck and how much more days it will take to process it. Robust Governance and effective management plays a crucial role in improving the system which is necessary in this case also.
We all want and hope that in the coming years the process will become smoother, less time consuming and user friendly.
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