- I Paid A Bribe
- 13 years ago
- 547 views
Passport officer insisted my passport was damaged and so demanded extra charge
- Passport
- Lost or Damaged Passport
- Paid INR 2,500
In Dec 2010, I went to Passport Office, Pune to renew my passport since it was about to expire in five months time. I filled in the form and applied for renewal of passport which has a fee of Rs 1000. The clerical staff didn't let me in saying my application was not valid because I had hand filled the application (There is no mention of any such requirement on the passport website that a hand written application is not acceptable). After pleading through some of the other people and showing my business card, I was allowed to ********** the passport officer.
He suddenly demanded that I change the category from renewal due to expiry to damaged passport. This has the charge of Rs 2500. In addition, according to him, damaged passport renewal can take more than 2 months time, despite all that is mentioned on the website. He insisted I pay another Rs 2500 to get the passport early by applying under Tatkal scheme.
I pointed out to him that I was returning from a round-the-world trip travelling through six countries (Australia, USA, France, Switzerland, Germany and India) and several ports. Nowhere, I was stopped or advised that my passport is damaged. To this, he said "if the whole world is blind, he can't help it." I also pointed out that my passport is expiring in another five months and I am only interested in applying for a renewal due to expiry. To this, he said, "If I wanted a quick service, I have to pay Rs 5000 to get my passport renewed. Otherwise, I can go back and stand in the line some other day. Or get it done through some travel agent."
The passport officer--supposedly a representative of the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, demands that I apply for a wrong category of renewal, so that they can charge me five times the regular amount.
I wish I had some way to tell these short-sighted people that this is very harmful for them and everybody else. Lack of integrity and ownership has led to destruction of entire kingdoms, if they remember any lessons in history from their civil services examination. These and many such actions encourage weakness and invasion from terrorists who are at times, homebred.