Office Office!. Review on Pune Passport Office

An uneven muddy compound, an old eerie looking yellowish building and 2 serpentine queues stretching till the parking. You could get out of your vehicle and instantly find yourself standing last in the queue. One queue would be only for enquiries and the other for scrutiny of documents! You can congratulate yourself that you have reached the right place- The Pune passport office!

My husband had to renew his passport and I had to change my last name and address. We had excitedly taken the appointment online by registering on https://passport.gov.in. Time scheduled- 10.00 am. We thought we were the smartest in the world because we had booked the first slot in the mourning, oh sorry .. morning. A half day leave from work should do the trick.

We were armed with our 'weapons' - registration form, 2 photo copies each of address proof, date of birth and our graduation certificate(So that ECNR would not be required), 3 passport sized photos and Rs 2000. Each of the photo copies need to have the applicant's sign on it. We also had the originals with us. They do not care if your photo copies are attested by genuine gazetted officials or notarised.

Just nothing could go wrong with us. We stood in the queue since 9.30 am, it seems people had been smarter to come at maybe 8 am. The Tirupathi lord would smile to see the dedication at places other than his temple. It just seemed to extend behind us but the queue length before us remained unaltered.

If you are confused as to how there could be just one counter for enquiries, don't you dare ask the security guard with killer looks. He would twirl the end of his long mustache while chewing tobacco and rebuke you (since you made him spit his favourite paan to answer your irrelevant question), "Board dikh nahi raha hai kaa? Toh kaahe pooch rahe ho?"

I could hear Pankaj Kapoor singing, "Office Office"somewhere behind me. We inched towards the scrutiny counter and after a good 2 hours spent in the scorching sun,(oh, you thought the waiting place had a shed?) we reached the scrutinizer’s desk. It was this lakshman rekha we had to pass and then we would win our battle soon. We would at least enter the office which had a fan! The scrutinizer interrupted our ‘cool’ thoughts. "Bar code kahan hai?" he demanded. We were baffled. We then realized that a bar code present on other application forms around us was not present on our form. Our beloved printer at home had uncannily forgotten to print the most important data.

We had no option but to take a fresh printout. Fortunately, we had soft copy of our forms. We looked around and spotted a string of shops proudly hosting the boards ‘Passport consultation and stationery’ on them. They were equipped with a Xerox machine, glue sticks, pens, one computer, a printer, 2 consultants and a clerk. The consultants would help fill forms for approximately Rs. 50 (depending on the complexity of your form!). We ran into one of these ‘mini firms’ and took a printout, making sure the bar code was printed. We had to shell out some extra cash for per page for this precious form.

My husband and I considered this consultation as a side business. Constant income with limited yet focused knowledge on how to fill up passport application forms! We stood at the end of the line again, this time the line was much shorter to our relief. Our watches showed 1 pm reminding us that our half day leave was over. We called up our workplaces and informed that we would probably take the day off to which our colleagues showed no surprise (they knew the mission we had for the day). We got a counter number, finally passed our lakshman rekha and made it right in to the office! We frantically looked around for our counter and found it. We ran towards it and, to our dismay, we found that there were at least 20 tired people already at the counter. Counters were closed for lunch break. We sat waiting for a time that seemed like eternity but was just 30 minutes.

Finally, at 4.30, we reached the counter. My husband handed over his form and a set of documents to the inspecting officer. The officer inspected all the documents for a good 10 minutes while we waited with bated breath. The look on his face was uncompromising. I suppose that is what this kind of job does to people. We didn’t blame him. He was our master for those seemingly unending 10 minutes of our lives. We were at our cultured best to all his queries and demands of documentation and supporting evidence. There was a brief moment of apprehension when he curtly pulled a document from the set and handed it over to my husband. The worst thoughts raced through our minds. Well, we proved Einstein wrong here – our thoughts ran faster than the speed of light! My husband’s nervous voice cracked, the pitch of which was not sufficient to be heard in the over-crowded hall. He repeated, "Kya hua?" The officer required just one proof of residence and handed over the additional proofs we had attached. The anxiety that was built up in that short span of less than a second was suddenly transformed into an equal amount of relief. He then took out a big rubber stamp that had "CANCELLED" embossed over it. He stamped it with a loud thud on some pages of the old passport and handed over the passport to us. My passport form and documents were yet to be reviewed, but by now we had already tasted the blood of success and were confident of getting through it. It didn’t take much time this time – at least it didn’t seem much now. We knew that our job was almost done. The same monotonous loud thud of stamping the passport made our day! After a more thorough perusal of our documents, he demanded the fees of Rs. 2000 to which he was completely entitled. We ran to the nearest restaurant to have our delayed lunch.

Ten days after we received our passports, we had a police constable visiting our place for police verification!! "Police Verippication ke liye aaya. Deepa yahan rehtin hain?" My dad- in law replied, "Verification? Par hume toh passport mil bhi gaya!" He was disappointed and tottered away.

Lessons learnt-

1. Do not hope for a smooth ride in the passport office.

   
   




2. Tally your printout with the online application form. You never know what printers can do.

   
   




3. Carry a soft copy of the form.

   
   




4. Do not take half day leave and hope your work will be done!

   
   




5. Carry your water bottle, cap and lots of snacks to keep munching in the waiting line. There is a water cooler there, but it is just outside a smelling toilet!

   
   




6. Wear comfortable footwear for running around.

   
   

The good part-

Our renewed passports arrived at our doorstep within a month. The officials at the passport office were efficient. Their lunch break was exactly for half an hour- 1 to 1:30pm.

Suggestions to the passport office-

Do I have the audacity to point out any flaw to you? You guys are the best!

As Sir P.G. Wodehouse has said in one of his books- "The brains of some people resemble soup at a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them."

Note- The stars and the recommendation hold no ground here as you have no other option!