I had visited psk ameerpet earlier for multiple passports for my family including children in 2012 and walked out with very positive experience including the delivery of passport in 2 weeks by speed post. This time I had to get my wife name changed after marriage and planned a visit to PSK again.

Few things changed since 2012:

1. Charges have gone up from INR 1000 to 1500.
2. Payment is done online and required before booking an appointment.
3. Appointment is always available and not customizable. It always gives the earliest date available. (I need to wait for my preferred day schedule to open up).
4. Call center executives are in hurry to close your call and move to next.

These changes are for good apart from charges going up and call center hurry. Earlier – getting an appointment was tricky.

For name change, I had enquired through call center and the document advisor web tool available on passport india website. I learnt few things here:

1. If the name change after marriage – meant only last name change – marriage certificate or marriage affidavit was sufficient.
2. if the name change included changing middle name – as in my case – I was advised to put get paper ad (one local + one national) for name change and get original paper clipping. It is considered first name change aka major name change.
3. I missed doing affidavit as per annexure E which is required in addition to affidavit as per  annexure d.
4. Based on my experience, I felt that requirement of putting paper ad is subjective in case of women applicant for name change after marriage. but if you do go with paper ad – it must accompany annexure E affidavit. otherwise – try without paper ad itself.
5. I am not sure how long the appointment fee is applicable if you are asked to furnish more documents. Paper ad for name change – afaik – only put in sunday issue of paper and hence, may take up to a week.

Name change ad do need a mention. I had gone through a notary/advocate who had contact of the enadu + hindu daily. For Hyderabad – these papers come under local + national daily.  Eenadu gives ad in Hindu for additional 100 (package deal) and it cost me INR 1100 for both. Ad text was built after seeing an existing ad in Eenadu. In my case – 7 lines were required. More lines – will have additional cost. Base cost is around 800-900 for min. 5 lines ad. If u get contact of the executive directly – you can directly contact him. I don’t have his contact with me. Ad request was submitted on Friday (through advocate to newspaper sales executive) to get published on Sunday.

Ordeal to get hold of your copies of these newspaper also need a mention. I learnt that you need to get out early morning 7:30am to get hold of few copies of these dailies on Sunday. I don’t subscribe these dailies. I have to hunt around few streets to find vendors (kirana shops) selling these; some of them had already sold out on Enadu! as I reached them around 8:30am. I bought 2 copies each paper and got one copy from the advocate (as a token of help!) though I wanted to have 3-4 copies each. I put these copies on my table in a corner. One copy got used by my family for wrapping vegetables thinking these are just old papers! I got back one copy hunting it down in the fridge.

As we know – adult can not have attendant. hence, my wife has to enter PSK alone. I have to sit out in a south indian food outlet nearby and enjoy the overheard-conversations of students coming in / out of ameerpet IT training institutes and having idly/vada/dosa bite here alone or in groups. First visit, she was asked to come next day with annexure E which I had missed.

Second visit – application got through. both days – she managed to get out around 1-2pm. I also learnt that tokens are not running in sequence. You can check with supervisor but that is all in your hand. Queues with passport officers (2nd and 3 queues) move slower compared to queue 1 especially in morning since all of them are not in.

This time – police verification was pre required. In my last 2012 visit – police verification was post required. Police verification finished in following 10 days (very timely compared to my expectation).

Now the most interesting aspect – passport is stuck in printing queue for last 1 month. The website is continuously showing status as “Police Report has been submitted by Commissioner of Police, … and action for passport printing is initiated, to be followed by lamination, signing, quality check and dispatch”. I called call center. They mention that passport is in queue for printing; there is no information why it is stuck in queue for printing for so long! I tried calling public landline number of Passport office Hyderabad. no body picks the phone though I found it to be busy for some time – in between – my attempts. I am waiting! will update once the application moves or I receive the passport.

I wonder whether it is because of state bureaucracy machinery slow down because of recent political changes (around election) or something else. If it does not move in another 2 weeks – I may need to try RTI application for status.

Nevertheless – the experience this time is poor. It has deteriorated – from getting passport in your hand in 2 weeks (normal not tatkaal) – to stuck for 1 month+ without clear status update 🙂 How is your experience recently?

Update: Finally the status changed after 5.5 weeks to passport printed. After another week (total 6 weeks) – passport got delivered through speed post. yeah!

Also note – SMS were send to the registered mobile whenever the status changed.