Recently I had the need to visit the Passport Seva Kendra in Bangalore lalbagh, Karnataka, India. I had read a lot about the new & improved services initiated by the Ministry of External Affairs. And I must say I was very impressed with the results.
The only painful experience is getting the passport appointment to visit the lalbagh Psk. Sadly the appointments are exhausted within 5 minutes of the window opening. However the appointment booking window opens all 7 days at 6 p.m. Yes, the booking window opens all day of the week and the booking is for the subsequent working days.
Application Process
Once you fill the application and get the appointment, you need to carry the required documents and the fees to the lalbagh PSK. The site (http://passportindia.gov.in) has very helpful tools to determine the fees for your application as well as the documents that needs to be carried with you.
Documents & Attestation
A few information that is not very clear with regards to the documents are;
When you take proof of residence you have to carry documents proving that you were a residence for at least a year. What I mean by this is, if you are carrying telephone bills or utility bills, you need to carry a latest bill and a bill from last year.
Another thing is about document attestation. In some situations you need to submit declarations that needs to be printed on lowest denomination stamp paper and notorised (e.g. when renewing a passport due to damage to the passport). Samples of all these are provided in Appendix.
And the last point is some documents like you passport copy is mentioned to be self attested. However for other documents, it is mentioned that it needs to be attested. It is not mentioned whether 'attested' means self-attested or attested by a gazette officer. You don't need to attest these document copies by a government officer. You can self-attest these documents as well. However don't forget to carry the original of these documents for verification by the officers there.
Total Time & Experience
All in all I was given a 30 minute slot and was asked to report 15 minutes earlier. I reported on time. There was a small crowd at the entrance. People who had reached well before their due time. However the security folks made it easy to enter inside on my scheduled reporting time. The whole process is conducted very smoothly. Instead of the planned 30 minutes, the entire process was completed in 45 minutes. Very professional managed.
Kudos to change. Hopefully we would have more & more of our government offices turn like this in future.
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