I never thought this story could have a part-3. But never say never! What is different, however, this time around is that the experience is not entirely negative but a mixed one, and in fact mostly positive.
A lot has changed in the 8 years since I last applied for a passport. Firstly, while we only had passport offices in state capitals back then, now we have passport seva kendra (PSK) in almost every district. The government has done well to utilise the network of post offices for various purposes including as PSK. Secondly, the Aadhar phenomena has revolutionised the document requirements and verification process. And lastly, the wider access to high speed internet has made information easily and widely available and transmissible. All these factors combined have dramatically reduced the hassles and time required to get various services including passport.
Encouraged by these trends as well as the fact that the PSK in my hometown is at walking distance from my house, I decided to apply for renewal of my passport with updates in certain personal details including address. I was pleasantly surprised at the very first stage i.e. online application. When applying for my passport 8 years ago, I was asked for separate documents for identification proof, address proof, date-of-birth proof, and ECNR status. In contrast, a single document i.e. Aadhar was sufficient this time around for three of the above four. And in case of renewal, old passport is sufficient for ECNR. Moreover, Aadhar could be verified online using OTP thereby reducing the document verification time. I remember being told 8 years ago that a copy of my documents (including PAN, educational certificates, etc.) would be sent to the issuing authorities with a request for verification and the document verification would be deemed complete only after positive response from all of them. Now all you need is an OTP and it’s done.
On to the next stage then! I took an appointment for physical visit to the PSK. It was again a pleasant surprise to find that the appointment for very next day was readily available unlike 8 years ago when appointments after 15 days or so were the norm. The experience at the PSK may vary from place to place but my hunch is that there will be more similarities than variations across PSKs.
First thing first, I expected the PSK to have multiple counters for multiple stages with kiosks and cabins as was the case in RPO 8 years ago. But to my surprise, PSK had one person (say Mr. A) handling two computers and a camera all by himself until sometime later when a person (say Mr. B) came to assist him. While Mr. A seemed to know everything about the process, Mr. B gave the impression that it was his first day at this job. He was given the job of collecting the application and verifying certain details from documents. Even though he was given a brief how-to at the beginning by Mr. A, he frequently had a clarification question for Mr. A.
There was no sanctity of appointment slots. Applications were collected and put in a pile as and when received and were reviewed and processed in the order they were received barring a few exceptions when Mr. A processed applications from female applicants on priority. Despite not strictly adhering to appointment slot, there was a general order in the house and none of the chaos that I witnessed in RPO 8 years ago.
The process itself was very smooth for me. Aadhar was already pre-verified. They checked it again with the original copy. My photograph was taken and old passport was stamped cancelled. And that was it! So much easier than last time. However, while waiting for my turn, I noticed that the experience was not similar for everyone. I noticed some of the old issues crop up for some applicants – e.g. Mr. A insisted that the ITI certificate was not sufficient for ECNR and demanded the candidate to produce 10th pass certificate despite document advisor of the ministry very clearly listing ITI certificate as one of the valid documents for ECNR. But more or less the experience was smooth for most applicants.
Two days after the PSK visit, there was an update in the status on the portal – the application had been received at the RPO. But after that, the status didn’t change for more than 20 days! Reminded of my previous ordeals, I filed an RTI requesting for update on the status of my application. And guess what, there was an update in the status very next day – police verification had been initiated. A day later, I received the call from the police station for the verification. They initially demanded a letter from ward councillor certifying that I am a resident, but eventually were happy with the residence certificate from SDO and also knowing that my family has lived there for 40 years. 3 days after the police verification, the passport was dispatched.
Incidentally, I received the passport and the reply to my RTI application on the same day. No prizes for guessing what the reply to my RTI application was! Of course it said, “Your passport number XXXXX has been dispatched on DD/MM/YYYY”. I’m not sure whether they would have honoured the 30-day SLA anyway, but I like to believe that the RTI had a role especially given the fact that they chose to reply to RTI on same day when the passport was dispatched.
And that is how I got my passport renewed without spending a single rupee over the legal fee!
The Intellectual Idiot 