What is the process for getting a Passport in India?
Planning for a big holiday blast abroad or to spend a vacation with your family in the foreign countries where you never imagined to be or awaiting to hold a PG degree overseas? Whatever the reason behind, as an Indian, to travel out of the country, you must need the travel document that proves the identity of the nationality.
Hence Passport is the must-have document to take as it’s useful both as an address proof when you are staying inside India and as an identity document while traveling abroad. Let’s now look at the process involved in getting a Passport in India.
Below are the steps involved to get an Indian Passport:
Filling a Passport Application form:
The first step is to fill the passport application online form or offline on the official website. The offline form can be downloaded after logging into the passport Seva portal or website and the details are to be filled offline. Then the form has to be uploaded on the same page where it was downloaded.
Document proofs such as date of birth proof, educational qualification and other address proofs that are mandatory are uploaded on the website.
All the details are to be given correctly, otherwise, the applicant faces issues during the verification process in the passport office and with police verification.
Booking an appointment slot:
Once the details and documents uploading is done, then you are redirected to the payments page for making the Passport application payment. The fees depend upon the type of Passport you are applying for i.e. Normal, Tatkal. Renewal, Lost, Damaged, etc.,
There are two modes of making the payment, Online and Offline. Offline Payment can be done by submitting the challan in any of the SBI bank branches nearby. All the steps for submitting the challan are clearly mentioned on the website.
Visiting PSK/POPSK:
The next step after making the payment is to book the appointment slot in the nearest PSK or POPSK. Once the slot is booked, you will receive an alert as SMS and email, which you have given during the time of registration.
Appointment time, date and location are clearly given in the SMS, email and appointment receipt. You can carry the receipt along with the original proof documents to the Passport Office.
Biometrics submission:
During appointment in the Passport office, you are asked to submit the biometrics in one of the counters. Biometrics are taken for security purposes and to prevent the fraudulent usage of passports.
If you need to make some changes in the details given in the filled application form, then you can request the officers in the counter.
Documents verification:
After taking the biometrics, you are taken to the next counter for verifying the documents. If all the documents are valid and relevant as per the details given in the form, then the process goes smoothly without any rejections in the file.
Otherwise, officers reject the file if the submitted proofs are not valid and are not supporting the details that are given in the application form. Thus the applicant needs to visit the Passport office multiple times as the file gets stuck in the middle of the process.
Police verification:
Police verification is also an important step in the whole application process. For normal Passport, Police verification is done prior to the issuance of Passport. For tatkal application, verification is done post the issuance of the Passport.
The full details on the verification is sent to the applicant’s mobile number as SMS, a few days after completing the verification at the Passport office. Police visit the applicant’s present address given in the application to verify his/her particulars. All the documents which are submitted at the PSK or POPSK are to be shown to the Police.
If the proofs submitted are valid and authorized, then the Police give positive feedback and immediately, the passport goes into dispatch and is delivered within a week or 10 days through the speed post.
Otherwise, when the Police submits an adverse report, then the verification process is incomplete and the file goes into hold. The application status can be checked online on the official website, to know the reason for rejection.
There can be multiple rejections reasons i.e. lack of sufficient documents, incorrect address, improper details, applicant’s criminal history, pending cases in Police station of other areas, etc.,
The Police then sends the rejected file to Regional Passport Office (RPO) for a further round of verification. Here the applicant needs to submit the proper proofs along with the explanation in RPO to process the file again.
If the explanation and proofs submitted by the applicant do not suffice, then he/she has to pay some amount as fine and reapply for a passport from the start by following the same procedure as before. In some cases, the reapplication is not valid and the current file is kept on hold till the passport authorities decide to process the file.
Issuance of Passport:
Generally, for normal Passport the whole process takes a month or two to complete the whole passport process depending upon the location of the applicant. In the case of tatkal passports, as it’s for emergency situations, the time taken is less to issue these passports compared to normal passports.
Tatkal Passports are mostly delivered within a few weeks to days, as per the applicant’s emergency situation. If the applicant fails to submit valid reasons and proper proofs to the Passport authorities during verification, then the Tatkal Passport application type is converted into a normal passport application type and is processed.
In any case, after the Passport is printed, it gets dispatched to the same address mentioned in the new Passport of the applicant through a speed post. The applicant has to be present physically in the same address when the post is received and has to show his/her identity card to take the Passport.
Else the post is stored safely in the head post office, till the applicant visits the post office and takes it after submitting the identity.
Thus the Government of India is trying to make the process of applying the Passport easier by taking the whole process online, which we can expect to happen within the next few years.
If you are still confused about the passport process or worried about the documentation part or if you have the file stuck due to some reasons, get in touch with SmotPro Passport consultancy. Being a professional consultancy, we offer all-time, end-to-end services to our customers on all types of Passports and Visas.
Feel free to share your experiences and circumstances you faced in the passport office, if any, in the comments below. For immediate solutions on any Passport or visa-related queries or concerns, contact our expert agents now.
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