<p>Anyone applying online for an appointment will be able to get one the very next day itself, at the four Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) situated in Bangalore, Hubli and Mangalore.<br /><br />This is the first time since the launch of the PSKs on May 21, that the waiting period is down to one day as promised when the system was launched. Until now, the time taken to obtain an appointment was anywhere between one to two months depending on the centre.<br /><br />Regional Passport Officer K J Srinivasa attributed the reduction in waiting time to some of the measures taken last month. “For one-and-a-half month, we were accepting applications directly at the Passport Office to take the burden off the PSKs and we accommodated as many people as we could. We seem to have now saturated the market and there is no usual rush. As of today, we had vacant slots at Hubli and Mangalore,” he said.<br /><br />Positive response<br /><br />In a refreshing change, people who went to the PSKs had a positive response about the experience. “I went in half an hour prior to my appointment time and from the time I entered to the time I left the place, it was two hours. The entire process went off smoothly and I did not face any problems,” said Deepak M, a media executive.<br /><br />He, however, said that using the online appointment process could get a little tricky and was best viewed with Internet Explorer. “The website is fairly comprehensive, but not all the features can be viewed with Mozilla. Users might miss out on getting an appointment ID and this is very important to even enter the PSKs,” he said.<br /><br />The daily slots for online appointments for the next working day will be released at 8 am everyday. As of June 21, 2011, the Passport office has stopped accepting applications in physical form.<br /><br />Getting appointments might take only a day but actually getting a passport in your hands might still be delayed as the police verification is pending in case of more than 55,000 applications. <br /><br />Out of this, police verification reports on 50,000 applications have been pending for more than 21 days. Of them 31,000 applications are from Bangalore. Though the police recently launched a special drive to clear these pending reports, it is likely to take a couple more months for the backlog to clear up. <br /><br />“We take about seven working days to issue a passport once we receive the police verification, but since the police verification reports itself are being delayed, there is nothing much we can do,” Passport Officer Srinivasa admitted.<br /><br />Tatkal passports are, however, being issued within seven days.<br /></p>
<p>Anyone applying online for an appointment will be able to get one the very next day itself, at the four Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) situated in Bangalore, Hubli and Mangalore.<br /><br />This is the first time since the launch of the PSKs on May 21, that the waiting period is down to one day as promised when the system was launched. Until now, the time taken to obtain an appointment was anywhere between one to two months depending on the centre.<br /><br />Regional Passport Officer K J Srinivasa attributed the reduction in waiting time to some of the measures taken last month. “For one-and-a-half month, we were accepting applications directly at the Passport Office to take the burden off the PSKs and we accommodated as many people as we could. We seem to have now saturated the market and there is no usual rush. As of today, we had vacant slots at Hubli and Mangalore,” he said.<br /><br />Positive response<br /><br />In a refreshing change, people who went to the PSKs had a positive response about the experience. “I went in half an hour prior to my appointment time and from the time I entered to the time I left the place, it was two hours. The entire process went off smoothly and I did not face any problems,” said Deepak M, a media executive.<br /><br />He, however, said that using the online appointment process could get a little tricky and was best viewed with Internet Explorer. “The website is fairly comprehensive, but not all the features can be viewed with Mozilla. Users might miss out on getting an appointment ID and this is very important to even enter the PSKs,” he said.<br /><br />The daily slots for online appointments for the next working day will be released at 8 am everyday. As of June 21, 2011, the Passport office has stopped accepting applications in physical form.<br /><br />Getting appointments might take only a day but actually getting a passport in your hands might still be delayed as the police verification is pending in case of more than 55,000 applications. <br /><br />Out of this, police verification reports on 50,000 applications have been pending for more than 21 days. Of them 31,000 applications are from Bangalore. Though the police recently launched a special drive to clear these pending reports, it is likely to take a couple more months for the backlog to clear up. <br /><br />“We take about seven working days to issue a passport once we receive the police verification, but since the police verification reports itself are being delayed, there is nothing much we can do,” Passport Officer Srinivasa admitted.<br /><br />Tatkal passports are, however, being issued within seven days.<br /></p>
