E-passport spells relief for students
If you’re also among many others who have waited long enough for their passports to arrive at your doorstep, the government is working out solutions to ease the process. If reports are to be believed, the Ministry of External Affairs recently assured that passports under the E-passport scheme be issued under Tatkal service within three days, a week’s time for the re-issue of passports and the handing over of a new passport within 21 days.
If things go as planned, among the many who will benefit are students who have missed out on important dates while waiting for their passports to arrive.
Says Namit Kakkar, a young professional from US, “I went to the US three years back, and I know how long I waited for my passport. In fact, I missed out on one of the dates for an exam while waiting for my passport to arrive. I just couldn’t apply. The situation is a lot better now, but with the E-passport scheme, the scenario will get a lot better.”
For some, this new initiative will save them a lot of trouble waiting for a passport in case of an emergencies. “I applied for my passport in July 2008 and did not receive it for almost four months. In an online enquiry, the message kept flashing, ‘Passport number XYZ is allotted and dispatch process is underway’. I applied well in advance for my cousin’s wedding in Australia, but got it much later. So I missed it any way. With the tatkal passport service speeding things up, it’ll be really good for most people,” says Priyanka Kaushik, who works with a web portal.
Meru applied for his passport earlier this year for a course in New York University. “There were three rounds for my entrance test for the session this year, but I missed all three of them, the last one being in August, as I don’t even expect it to come by next month. I thought the passport will come in a month’s time, but it still hasn’t. I applied in January. You don’t know what to do in such cases,” she says.
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