Passport grievances- Online Grievance Addressal/ Submission of Feedback

For customer convenience and offering people a rewarding experience, Ministry of External Affairs has established an intuitive system. The user-friendly system has been designed to provide people with an opportunity to get their passport related grievances addressed online easily and effectively. Passport seekers or holders relying on this system need not spend hours standing in queues to get information regarding their applications.

The vast knowledge database available online provides required information and knowledge to individuals. Resultantly, unlike the past, not many people today end up raising grievances. However, those who find raising a grievance essential can do the same conveniently with the following means.

Online Grievance Addressal/ Submission of Feedback

You can easily submit a passport related grievance or feedback online by filling an online form with the instructions given below.

Passport Reference Details: These details include your application reference number, file reference number, and passport number that you receive from the passport office. You also require selecting the Passport Seva Kendra (or office) from the drop down menu. The office choice should be the one that is closest to you or the one that had disbursed your previous passport.

Applicant Details: In the second part of the form, you are supposed to fill in your details. Under the applicant name, you have to enter your name as it appears on the passport. Fill in your date of birth in the DD / MM / YYYY format, your permanent address as mentioned in the passport, an email ID and your mobile or the landline number.

Application Details: This being the third and the final part of the online passport grievance form must contain all the information regarding the type and nature of your grievance/ feedback. Following is the information with the sub-categories that you are required to fill in the form.

Category: The options of categories that you get to choose from a drop down selection box include Delay in Application Submission, Delay in Processing of Passport, Postal Related Issues, Police Related Issues, Passport Booklet Related Issues, and Appointment Related Issues. Miscellaneous, Portal Related Issues, Feedback, and Complaints against call center are the other category choices.
Sub-category: As the sole aim of this online system is to offer convenient, time effective and appropriate passport grievance and feedback addressed to people, each of the main categories has a sub-category. The self-explanatory sub-categories allow the Passport Office have comprehensive insights into the real problem and then offering ideal solutions seamlessly.

III. Description: In the description section of the online form, you can describe your case and place a request in a descriptive manner, using a maximum of 3,000 words.

National Call Centre to Address Grievances

If you desire to resolve your passport grievance or query offline telephonically, you can count on the toll-free National Call Centre. The Passport Office operates the call center 24 hours a day and seven days a week. The call center number is 1800-258-1800 that you can access in 17 different Indian languages. The vast database of information helps users clarify innumerable doubts and address numerous grievances ideally.

Mobile application mPassport Seva App

Taking a step further to ensure customer convenience and a better address of passport grievances and feedback, the Passport Office has also released a Smartphone application. Available on iOS, Windows OS, Android and Blackberry OS platforms, the application enables citizens to find information on the steps required to apply for a passport, how to address grievances and ample information on various passport related services.

Additionally, users of this application can easily access locations of the nearest Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) and District Passport Cells (DPC), track status and progress of their passport applications and find answers to all their passport related queries. You can also avail the SMS query responder service of the Passport Office by paying a one-time enrolment fee of INR 30 at the nearest PASSPORT Seva Kendra (PSK). Subsequently, you can know about the status of your passport application by sending an SMS to 9704100100 from the confines of your home or even when on the go.

CPGRAMS Central Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System

The CPGRAMS portal is yet another reliable option to raise your passport grievance. You can convey your grievances and feedback to the Public Grievance Cell over the telephone or can send the same through post and e-mail. You can also rely on the Direct Public Interface, wherein you can visit the nearest Passport Office between 10:00 am and 1:00 pm to get answers to all your queries. In the case of a complex issue that has not been resolved for long, you can take your case to a Passport Adalat. The Passport Office organizes these adults (courts) at regular intervals to address grievances and concerns.

How to track the status of your grievance/service request/feedback

After you raise a passport grievance, the Passport Office takes some time to revert. For tracking the status of your submitted grievance or feedback, you can rely on an online tool. For accessing the tool, you are supposed to provide at least one of the following information or identification. This information could be your date of birth in the DD / MM / YYYY format, your service request number, application reference number, your file number or even the passport number. This information could be your date of birth in the DD / MM / YYYY format, your service request number, application reference number, your file number or even the passport number.

What to do if the passport is lost/misplaced/stolen

In case you lose your passport somewhere, or someone steals it, you should immediately inform the nearest police station. Additionally, you should report the same to the nearest Passport Office. The office immediately registers the instance and notifies required authorities at the earliest to prevent misuse of your passport. After all these formalities, you can apply for a new passport if required.

Summary

For making passport grievance addressed convenient and resulted oriented for people, the Passport Office in India has left no stone unturned. It goes overboard to maintain the online tools and the information database to perform well consistently.