I am an avid follower of Shashi Tharoor on twitter. I respect that man for candid revelations of inner world of Indian political bureaucracy. I was infact very happy to know that few days ago he had a meeting with all the officials of the southern regional passport offices to figure out ways and means of serving the public better.
Well, I thought it would be helpful to apprise Shashi on the current simple processes at our regional passport offices that are thoroughly mismanaged before we plan and implement better ways of helping public. It is a sad state of affairs at the Hyderabad regional passport office. My brother, about to leave to the UK on a business trip, applied for a duplicate passport as the lamination on the last page of his old passport was damaged. He applied under the 7 day tatkal quota, that cost him Rs 5000/-. Well there is also 15 days tatkal quota for Rs 2500/- .Having applied on the 24th of July, my brother was expecting the passport by the 31st of July. On the 29th of July the website was updated saying “police verification pending”. There is no police verification required for a tatkal passport where the address on the passport matches the current permanent address. So we begin the long journey of calling the unresponsive passport office enquiry number. In 3 hours we make about a 50 attempts before we get thru to some customer service madam in the office. And mind you, you dare not show your temper to these guys even if you were trying to get them online for 6 hrs. In a meek and respectful tone my dad asks him about the status of the passport and if there was any mistake in updating the online status. The voice on the other side said that the status updated was perfect since this is a normal passport application. With a broad smile on his face my dad replied that it was a tatkal application. The reply from the otherside was the most hilarious I have ever heard “ Ayyo, saar, we dint know till the time you told us, we thought it was a normal application form”. Blindfolded dumbos did not flip the page while processing to see if it was a normal application or a tatkal! They end the call saying that they will process the application immediately and the passport will be posted in 2 days. Another candid request from them was not to trust the updates on the website because the servers are down for the past few days. Perfect example of IT implementation in a govt setup. It’s like handing AK 47 to a toy gunner. Anyways, with a sigh of relief, we drop the phone and decide to wait for the next 2 days. On the 2nd of August we call up to find out that the application has been processed and the new passport number has been generated. On the 5th we find out that the application has not been processed. And all this information is from the same lady who answered the calls on the 31st, 2nd and the 5th.
We finally decided to go to the passport office. The scene at the office is chaos. People standing in line for hours together to enquire about the status of the passport. After 4 hours of waiting, the only P.R.O ( I think it is the Public Reprimanding Officer) obliges to give us the status of the passport. “ Saar your passport is done. Here is the new number. You will get it in 2 days” . On 10th, we go again with a hope that we will get to meet the Passport officer, but in vain. On 11th again, again on 12th, and also on the 13th of august. We don’t get to see the LORD. Probably we dint offer the right ablutions to see him. Infact there were other disciples offering ablutions to the office boys and other babus at the desks to get their passports done. On enquiring with one such applicant, we found that he was a veteran at this office. He applied for a 7 day tatkal passport 2 months ago and never received it. Since then he has bribed so much that he could have got a return ticket to Srilanka, but sadly he never got the passport. Same was the story with many others. People suggested that we adopt the same route so that atleast the turn around time is reduced to 2 month which otherwise might end up to be 3-4 months. Now we are wondering if we should adopt the Indian way of getting things done – Jugaad ? paisa? What else do the Lords accept? Any suggestions Mr Tharoor?
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