Tips from my visit to Passport Seva Kendra (PSK), Begumpet

Some of the most dreading experiences of an aam aadmi/aurat's life are visiting government offices to get your work done; be it the registrar's office, the RTO’s office, you name it. Most of the time the fear is irrational, because the situation is not under your control. You may be a rockstar in the office, a big entrepreneur in your own right, a globe trotter who has visited more countries than your neighbour uncle’s NRI son (the one doing MS in the US) or may be all of that.. BUT.. despite all of your accomplishments, without any sarkari influence, YOU are under the mercy of some babuworking there.

So if you are at the registrar’s office and the babu dude asks you your Aadhar card, YOU give him your imaginary Aadhar card. You can’t reason with the dude saying that “I’ve been living in the US for so long.. blah.. blah.. I don’t need Aadhar.. blah blah.. Aadhar has privacy issues.. blah blah.. PLUS the Supreme Court has declared that Aadhar is voluntary and not mandatory!” All your efforts in reasoning fall on deaf ears and the people behind you in the queue are restless already :D Po ra, nee enka mastu mandi undru.

Back to the matter at hand… my passport was due to expire and I had to get a reissue done. All I had to do was include my wife’s name in the passport with a brand new photograph. No other changes needed to be done.. No change in address – meant no police verification.. no muss.. no fuss.. right? WRONG!!! :)

Like a good citizen, I logged on to the Passport Seva website, http://www.passportindia.gov.in/; created a new user and once my account was active, I filled in all my details.

I then submitted all of my details (the portal gave me a warning that I should verify every bit before submitting). I had to book a slot for an appointment at the various PSKs in the city. I opted for Begumpet because the slot was a suitable one. The address is Dno. 1-8-368 to 372, Gowra Trinity, Chiran Fort Lane, Begumpet, Secunderabad – 500016.. I then made a payment for 1500 rupees for a normal passport. I also agreed to pay TCS a nominal sum of Rs. 40/- for SMS updates (a very useful feature for anxiety prone dudes like me) Phew!

TIP 1: Pay Rs.40/- for SMS updates. It’s too nominal a sum to pay :P

I then looked up the document advisor at the portal. I selected 'No change in address' and inclusion of spouse’s name in the passport. Simple enough, hain? Nahin!! :)

When I looked at my marriage certificate, I saw something that made my stomach churn with nausea :| My wife’s name has her middle name as the name of her ancestral village and her last name as my father-in law's name in the certificate :O

I filled the form with the assumption that a father's first name usually goes into the person's middle name. In doing so, I had interchanged her middle name and her surname as per her passport! :O

Holy son of GOD!

I thought it was a mistake for sure.. I took a look at her passport, and it had the SAME NAME as in the marriage certificate (obviously, the certificate was made using her passport as proof of identity :P)

But then is it such a big deal? So what if the person’s name is FirstName LastName MiddleName? Well, in our motherland, it ain’t no big deal.. but Uncle Sam is not so forgiving! Surnames or family names are taken seriously.. If you are Harry James Potter, you can’t convince those US authorities that you are the boy who lived if your name in Ginny’s passport is Harry Potter James. Just Harry Potter is allowed, but not Harry Potter James; since James becomes your family name and not Potter. If you are on a dependent visa, good luck with convincing them that both names are same! In all probability, Ginny can stay but you WILL BE DEPORTED BACK TO HOGWARTS!

Here’s where my wife was as cool as cucumber and told me to take a chill pill and that the folks at the PSK would again ask you to verify everything, you can make last minute changes then.. AAH! Second chance at REDEMPTION! I kissed my wife and made a mental note :)

TIP 2: Mistakes can be corrected at the PSK

Don’t panic if you have made ANY mistakes during submission. You can always get it corrected at the PSK, usually at the Processing Zone (A counters)

Keep the originals and photocopies of every document you need and don’t need. Self-attest all of them. And take a print of the damned Appointment Receipt.

TIP 3: Take a print of Appointment receipt. It your entry ticket to the PSK.

God bless those SMS updates, TCS kept reminding me.. “get your lazy ass moving to be on time”. Driving instructions to the Passport Seva Kendra are simple: if you are travelling towards Begumpet from Secunderabad, take the next left turn after the Bowl O’ China junction. For the directionally challenged, click here.

I took a TAXI FOR SURE (TFS) cab to go there. The good driver knew the place and I sat back, crossed my legs, relaxed and drifted to deep sleeeeeep… SNORE.. SNORE!!

When I reached the place I saw a sea of humanity raring to barge in.. While we have the habit of being fashionably late, everybody.. I repeat.. EVERYBODY (well, almost) present there knew the virtue of punctuality! They were at least half hour before the reporting time.

TIP 4: Be at the PSK at least 30 minutes before the reporting time.

You get a lot of services by the local bandi walas outside the PSK:

Photocopy “ XEROX” for Rs. 2 per page (double the usual charge, but the guy is clearly cashing in on his proximity to the PSK. It’s nominal for you, but his margin just increased by a 100 percentage points :O).. See the value of being there much before time? You can afford to take last minute photocopies of your originals. Other services include: Tea for dudes like us to relax our senses.. hmm… and Notary for creating any last minute notarised affidavits.

Every 15 minutes, a batch of people rush in to form a queue when it’s their turn to walk in. Keep an eye on your watch and when it’s 2 minutes prior to your reporting time, AAKRAMAN!

As soon as you walk in, you will have to submit your photocopies at Token Counter 1-2 and wait outside the queue. The token dude will give a cursory glance at your originals and photocopies and issue a file with your photocopies inside and a paper token. The token number on the token is your ID. It is this number that is flashed across all the screens to tell you which counter to go to.

There are three kinds of counters, A (Processing Zone) – B (Verification Zone) and C (Granting Zone). Rush towards the entrance of the counters (you’ll have to take a right turn). You’ll then have to find if your token number on the screen is assigned against a counter number. The screens are quite intuitive. All the token numbers are always sorted in ascending order, so it’s easy to find yours. At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find ads. Ads are also tailored to the context. Godrej wants you to safeguard your passport in its secure vaults, Bank of Baroda wants you to get its BoB travel card when you travel abroad and Thomas Cook offers a wide range of discounts on its travel packages.

TIP 5: Be alert and keep tracking your token number on the screen.

Don’t keep looking at ads like I did or don’t be the budda uncle who is late all the time. Your one minute’s delay will have a cascading effect on the dudes and dudettes behind you. Also the guys behind counter sit for hours without much breaks servicing people like us, one at a time. So don’t waste others’ time and yours.

When it was my turn to sit at one of the A Counters, I had diligently given out every document he asked. He scanned their respective photocopies from the file and refiled them. He asked me to smile for the camera and I flashed my batteesi at it and it flashed its blinding flash at me.. ;( 

There were two monitors for each system, one facing him and one facing me. As he was scrolling down, I looked at my wife’s name and I pounced on that immediately.. Yo Counter guy, fix my wife’s name. He gladly did it and then asked me if I had my Class X certificate. Wait… You need what now? Class X certificate? And why exactly does one need it? Obviously not to know my marks :P After all, my old passport was made by referencing my Class X certificate in the first place for my date of birth and names of my parents. The counter guy smiled at me and asked me to go to APO1 counter.

Guys, APO1 is a dead end. Ideally, your route should be counter A -> B -> C -> Exit. But if you are assigned APO1, you are to meet the Assistant Passport Officer of the PSK. He’s got the power to either let you back in the game or kick you out of the game. There was a lot of waiting outside the APO’s cabin. I looked into the cabin through the door and then his seat was empty. Daavuda..

After 30 agonising minutes, he came back from wherever it is he went to. And people before me started moving in. When my token ID flashed on the screen before me, it was my turn to go into the APO’s cabin. Surprise, surprise! APO had other things to tend to like monitoring the feed from all the CCTV cameras on his monitor; while one his assistants from TCS did all the talking.. “No class X certificate?” No. “It is compulsory”. That’s it. No explanation, no workarounds were offered. Whatever he needed was already there.. my date of birth, the names of my parents, my name.. I tried to reason with him, but his tone had an air of finality.. “Go to the Exit Counter and come back some other day.” That’s when I had the sarkari office moment.. if don’t have it, no point in presenting arguments to his counter-arguments. Some other day, I'll have to go come back go through this again.. Ayyoooo!

TIP 6: Get your class X certificate. Period.

  

At the Exit Counter, I was asked to part with my file and was given this slip:

That was my entry ticket for my next visit. Notice that according to the slip, I have no additional documents required to be submitted :P

My next visit to the PSK was more or less same. I hired a Taxi For Sure cab, reached the place 20 minutes earlier than my reporting time, was part of the queue when it was my time to enter and then I went in. This time, I was asked to give my slip at the token counter 6, for old hats like me who were asked to come back. I slowly smiled when I found kindred spirits like me who were clutching their Class X certificates. The counter 6 guys looked at our slips and found the earlier files they had given us during our previous visit. This time, we were asked to wait for awhile inside the waiting hall. This is done so that the next batch of people can walk in. The files reach the Security guard manning the door separating the token counters and the waiting hall. The guard then reads out the name aloud and hands out the file.

I got my file and then the game began! Counter A to scan my class X certificate -> Move to Counter B where my scanned photocopies are verified with my originals (again!) and then to Counter C where all pages of my old passport was once again verified again. And a thappa was put on my old passport. There are around 30 A Counters, 8 B Counters, and 6 C Counters. There was a bit of waiting while moving between each counter. Logic being not all dudes who visit the earlier Counters end up victorious :) Good logic, TCS.

At the exit counter I was given a slip with all the documents I had submitted and telling me that no police verification was required since there is no change in address! And TCS gave me an SMS update in the next half hour that printing has been initiated for new passport :)

At home, I calmly looked at the document advisor. I looked at conditions which required class X certificate. Deletion of ECR required it. But it had multiple other options:

That guy could have suggested any of the other options as well. One can easily download IT-R acknowledgements, print them all and shove them up the file’s ass. With nearly 20 applicants walking in every 15 minutes, you are merely one among many. They really don’t take the time to explain their actions. This disclaimer being the killer:

TIP 0: Check every option in the document advisor which is applicable to you

ECR was applicable in my case. I missed it. So don't be a dummy like me. Be wiser :) 

But I must hand it to TCS. They have streamlined a cumbersome process. The PSK had a clear mission statement to serve the citizens. Can’t say the same about other government offices. To serve, or not to serve, that is TheQuestion!