Corruption@Passport
Dont you find the topic close to your heart (especially Indians and the ilk). Well everybody has some interesting incident related to it. So here I was, with my passport stuck in the official rigamarole and almost after one year of no communication from the Passport Department, I decided to find out the matter myself.
Believe me things really work faster here if you find some good contacts, else you are sure to remain in the dock.So consider me lucky as I was able to get things going, actually getting things going real fast. While sitting with the concerned officer I saw how the common public grievances were being addressed, believe my guys you will feel pity for them but the officer remains unmoved. He was more worried about his lunch than the people standing in the queue.
There were people from all walks from life, with a different story to tell and with diiferent passport problems and all of them got the same official reply ," We Will look into it", and I hope you know very well what it means. For the innocents, it means ..."grease the palms a bit and the machinery starts working". So a single passport may sometime requires CB-CID verification (500), Police Verification (500), Passport Office( varies depending upon severity and urgency) plus the form fees. Its just the money that matters, policemen might not even verify your credentials once their appetite is satiated.
I sitting there felt real sad for the state of affairs existing in the most important depatment of the government. One person even pointed out to the officer that his verification was not done as he did not grease the palms, even showing all authentic documents, but did anybody care for those pieces of paper other than those with Mahatma's Photograph printed. So all his woes were falling on deaf ears, and in the end all of the 61 applications were piled up and thrown towards his smart secretary. The secretary being the wholesole incharge of discplining people was also keeping an eye on the proceedings.I guess they had some symbolic language by which he knew the applicants that have to be addrressed on priority.
Later the officer left with me and all the applications and work was left for the secretary to handle. He too was very eager to take on the officer's role consider he had stopped two applicants for addressing them personally, or maybe, on behalf of the officer.It was a sickening feeling, but considering my priority was to get my work done and I too had suffered my share of troubles I let that matter pass. You might consider me selfish, well maybe i am, but frankly what use is there to raise a hue and cry when we Indians know very well what the end result comes out.
In the end my work was done within 2 hours from the same office that took an year for giving me my Indian Nationality.
Believe me things really work faster here if you find some good contacts, else you are sure to remain in the dock.So consider me lucky as I was able to get things going, actually getting things going real fast. While sitting with the concerned officer I saw how the common public grievances were being addressed, believe my guys you will feel pity for them but the officer remains unmoved. He was more worried about his lunch than the people standing in the queue.
There were people from all walks from life, with a different story to tell and with diiferent passport problems and all of them got the same official reply ," We Will look into it", and I hope you know very well what it means. For the innocents, it means ..."grease the palms a bit and the machinery starts working". So a single passport may sometime requires CB-CID verification (500), Police Verification (500), Passport Office( varies depending upon severity and urgency) plus the form fees. Its just the money that matters, policemen might not even verify your credentials once their appetite is satiated.
I sitting there felt real sad for the state of affairs existing in the most important depatment of the government. One person even pointed out to the officer that his verification was not done as he did not grease the palms, even showing all authentic documents, but did anybody care for those pieces of paper other than those with Mahatma's Photograph printed. So all his woes were falling on deaf ears, and in the end all of the 61 applications were piled up and thrown towards his smart secretary. The secretary being the wholesole incharge of discplining people was also keeping an eye on the proceedings.I guess they had some symbolic language by which he knew the applicants that have to be addrressed on priority.
Later the officer left with me and all the applications and work was left for the secretary to handle. He too was very eager to take on the officer's role consider he had stopped two applicants for addressing them personally, or maybe, on behalf of the officer.It was a sickening feeling, but considering my priority was to get my work done and I too had suffered my share of troubles I let that matter pass. You might consider me selfish, well maybe i am, but frankly what use is there to raise a hue and cry when we Indians know very well what the end result comes out.
In the end my work was done within 2 hours from the same office that took an year for giving me my Indian Nationality.
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