Passport Services - Addl Inputs

Below are the key issues, root causes and solutions as identifed by you in the area of Passport Services. Kindly review and share any additional specific inputs you may have to improve passport services in India. We will soon be submitting this whitepaper to the key stakholders in Government so actions can be taken to improve services.

We look forward to your inputs!

Passport Services - Solutions

1. Agents should be completely banned at passport offices
2. Approaching an agent for passports should be made an offence
3. A time duration should be set for the state police to get the police verification done
4. Failure to do so should make the police officer liable to be questioned by his senior
5. If a tatkal passport is not received within the stipulated time frame, the entire money should be refunded
6. All the paperwork should be computerized
7. The progress should be made trackable online
8. The report of a police officer asking for bribes while doing a passport verification should be taken very seriously
9. The police verification process should be redefined
10. Police officers should be able to monitor the verification cases assigned to them on their smart phones
11. The old rules which cause much confusion should be revamped
12. Separate counters should be created for applying fresh passports and renewals
13. Sitting arrangements at application centres should be improved
14. Passport office workers found to be working with touts should be suspended
15. The renewal process should be made online
16. Passports issued with wrong names, address etc. should be corrected free of cost and the same collected from the person concerned in the RPO
17. Passports delayed beyond a certain time of say one month should invite a financial penalty for Regional Passport Office.

Issues in Passport Services - Root Causes

1. Agents have been allowed to mushroom despite the easing of processes
2. Agents bribe the RPO staff to get work done fast
3. The process defined for police verification has many loop holes
4. No one in the system is held responsible if the passports are not generated/delivered on time
5. A part of the process of getting the passport made is still not computerized and a lot of paper documents are asked for
6. The efficiency of the local police stations for verification is extremely poor
7. Visiting Police officers demand bribes based on the need/urgency of the applicant to get the passport
8. Majority of the rules and regulations have not been revised for a long time
9. Passport Sewa Kendras are relatively small offices
10. The number of people that visit these offices daily is very high.

Passport Services - Issues Faced

1. Agents approach people near the passport offices and create unnecessary confusion
2. Police verification sometime takes a long time
3. People do not get their passports on time even after applying through tatkal service
4. Files getting misplaced is a regular issue in non-metro cities
5. Bribes are demanded during police verification
6. Getting small changes made like surname change or address change is a head ache
7. Some rules of the passport service are archaic and cause much hardships to the citizens
8. Same counters for fresh passport, renewals and re-issue creates long queues
9. Lack of sitting arrangements for senior citizens and ladies inside the Passport Sewa Kendra
10. Some of the centres still have alliances with touts so that they get a cut when they refer someone to make an affidavit even if that is not mandatory for renewal or new passport making process. more