Thursday, February 23, 2006

Renewal of Passport

It is ten years since i got my first passport and time for renewal. Much has changed in the last ten years (at the regional passport office, bangalore)
* I reserved an appointment online to submit the application and was able to complete the submission process in about 35 mins. It took more than 3 hours of waiting in large queues ten years ago. Appointment through the web was unheard of.
* You can view the status of your application on the web, phone or even via SMS
* New passports are expected in 40 days, a huge improvement from the 3 to 5 month wait earlier
* Documentation has been simplified but there is still room for improvement
* Amenities (waiting halls, seating, hygiene, audio systems etc) for users at the office require improvement, has not changed much in the last ten years though it looks a little more organised. A new passport office is being built in Koramangala and this might make it better for users.

Look forward to the police verification and issue of the new passport soon.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Ho John Lee said...

Hello Sai,

I'm doing my US renewal by mail, and have paid the express processing fee as well, so I'm hoping it will be back within a couple of weeks. There's no way to track progress though. I sent it by Express Mail to Pittsburgh, then after that it's a black box. The express processing is supposed to turn around in 3 days.

8:53 PM  

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