THE EVOLUTION OF PASSPORT OFFICES, THANK GOD! - (TALES OF INCLUSIVITY) #Blogchatter #WriteAPageADay
“Those were the days,
my friend, we thought they’d never end…”
That was the song
that went through my mind, many years ago, when I was waiting at the dingy,
overcrowded passport office at Chennai, a building that spoke of desperation and
perspiration. People milled about, clutching at files that held precious
documents that would decide if they were eligible for a passport or not. The
queues were serpentine, an unbroken chain that meandered across the lobby,
crawled up the stairs and stood for hours outside tiny cubicles where officials
sat, getting more and more irritable with every hour that went by. God help
those who were at the end of the queue for they were often at the receiving end
of frayed tempers and bad behaviour, for no fault of theirs.
Having been part of
the Indian Army, with my husband being posted to myriad places every two to
three years, my passport got misplaced even as it tried frantically to keep
pace with our moves. Unfortunately, when it got to Delhi, we had just moved
out, and hence, it was sent back to wherever it came from.
After frantic attempts
to locate it, my husband finally filed an RTI to find out where my passport
was. Finally, we got the good news that it had landed in the Chennai passport
office and that we needed to cut the red tape and finally get it in hand.
As far as I was
concerned, my entire day would be dedicated to standing around in the passport
office. My husband dropped me off and went to work, promising to pick me up in
the evening. I had fortified myself with a bottle of water and a sandwich. At
nine in the morning, my wait began, as I slowly began to flow upwards with the
crowd. The day went by and I wandered from cubicle to cubicle, till in one
office, a man beckoned me in. He took a look at my papers and nodded.
“Rs. 600, and I will
get you an interview with the Passport Officer!”
I was bewildered. As
far as I knew, all my papers were in order, and all I needed was to get to the
end of the line. Anyway, I nodded, but I told him that I would pay him only
after I met the officer concerned. He asked me to go sit outside the Chief Passport Officer’s cabin. He would do the needful, he nodded gravely.
By then, it was
almost evening and my husband had come looking for me. I told him proudly that I
had managed to bypass the line and find the right spot. His scepticism did not faze
me. After a short while, we found ourselves inside the Passport Officer’s
cabin.
The Passport Officer
looked at my documents with a frown. “Who sent you here?” he asked, brusquely.
“An official who was
sitting in the floor below, “ I answered. “He told me that I would have to pay
him Rs. 600 to meet you.”
The officer’s brow darkened,
and he retorted, “There is no such official downstairs. Are you sure you are
telling me the truth?”
My husband and I were
stunned. Before I could convey my annoyance at being doubted, my husband said
with all the dignity he could muster, “I am an Army officer and we do not need
to rely on falsehoods to get our way.” His manner was so decisive that the
officer paused. Then he turned to me and said, “Madam, can you identify the official
who told you that?”
The next moment, all
three of us were charging down the dingy staircase as people stared at us,
wondering what on earth we had done. When we reached the room, I peeped in. The
official was still sitting there and when he saw me, he gave me a big smile. “Come
in, Madam!”
The next moment, his
smile slipped when he saw the Chief Passport Officer and he stood up
sheepishly, as he received a mouthful from him.
The upshot of the
matter was that the so-called official was actually a sweeper from the next
building, a tout who had been making some money on the side under false
pretences. Luckily, I had not risen to the bait.
Needless to say, the
Passport Officer was as apologetic as he could be and in a matter of days, I had
my passport in hand.
This morning, I
escorted my mother to the Passport Office in Thrissur. Happily, the entire
passport office system has now been outsourced to TCS and when we went there,
well before time given my mother’s famed punctuality gene, we were ushered in
immediately. There were cubicles everywhere, where people worked like
clockwork. In no time, we were taken from one cubicle to the other, and in
about half an hour, we were at the final one where my mother’s photograph and
fingerprints were taken. The officers were the epitome of courtesy and nowhere
did we have to wait. The moment the formalities were done, an SMS was sent to
our registered mobile which indicated that the passport would soon be on its
way.
What a world of
difference between the two experiences! The world of passport offices has evolved,
and life has become easier for the common man. As Tennyson put it so well, “The
old order changeth, yielding place to new, / And God fulfils Himself in many
ways/ Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
Totally agree. Getting a passport in India has now become really easy.
ReplyDeleteThank God for TCS and the evolution they brought to the passport offices..
ReplyDelete