Just when you think everything is getting better, it gets worse. 
Neeraj went to the Mumbai Regional Passport Office today in hopes to get his Passport Clearance Certificate. Its been a long time, and really we had heard that it shouldn’t take longer than 8 days. Plus he needs his passport by this upcoming week because he’s going to the Lucknow Passport Office on the 20th of June.
So he went to the Passport Office in Worli, and they told him that the CID is still doing their verification. If he wanted a status for his case, he should go to their office and find out. They told him that they couldn’t do anything until they get the paperwork from the CID. Then he headed to the CID office only to talk to a lady who was utterly confused and rude. 
The lady thought that Neeraj was getting a new passport made 
, but then he explained that he is here for a passport clearance certificate only. The lady told him that these things usually take anywhere between 30-45 days to complete because they need to have two reports, one from the local police station and one internally from the CID. 
30-45 days????? No one told us that:!: Now what are we going to do? He’s suppose to be in Lucknow in a week, and he can’t go without his passport. 
He asked the lady if there is anything he can do to speed up the process, but she said no. Aargh! He went over to the local police station, Sakinaka, and asked them about the status of his case. The officer there was also confused. 
He also thought that Neeraj wanted a new passport and started asking him for proof of his permanent residency, a letter from the society where he currently lives, etc… He also asked him why he wants this done, and if he already has a police certificate, then what is the need for this? Why does anyone not know what they are suppose to be doing???? 
Then finally after major explaining by Neeraj, the officer told him that he needs only two things: letter from the society and proof of his job. Once he has that, then he will be able to send it to the CID.
Everywhere you go, everybody has their two cents to put in! Just do your job, and do it quickly! Nothing gets done until you bribe someone, but who do we give it to in this situation?
So now what are we going to do? Well, if we go with the process then the passport clearance certificate won’t be done until 30th June. That means that Neeraj’s Lucknow trip has to be delayed. Which results us in losing money.
Next steps:
Neeraj is going to Sakinaka Police Station tomorrow with his landlord to get the necessary paperwork to the officer. Then hopefully the officer will send it to CID by Monday. Monday, Neeraj will go to the CID, and see if he can talk to the person internally who will be handling his case, and see if he can do anything about speeding up the process (a.k.a bribe).
Once we get some answers (hopefully 
) then we will think about what to do about the Lucknow tickets. 
I hope that we won’t have to cancel, but if Neeraj doesn’t get his passport before the day he leaves for Lucknow, we will have no other choice but to change the dates.
I wish my Neeraj didn’t have to go through all this trouble. Life would be much easier if people would do their job. But then I guess we would expecting too much from mera Bharat mahaan. 
Alvida. Jai Mata Di.
Oh Gosh it sounds like a real nightmare. I would be so losing my patience by now. Knowing me i’d be showing my own attitude back at them and then to get back at me they would probably take even longer in processing all the papers:rotfl:.
Actually i did have a run in once at the passport office here in brisbane. My birth certificate does not list my dad’s surname (MURTI) as my surname; instead it has my mothers maiden name (DEVI) as my surname (a stuff up from fiji but no-one really gave it much thought at the time). But i have been using Murti as my surname all along. When we first came to Australia my passport was issued under Devi as per birth certificate. But all my other stuff, school and uni records, drivers license, bank accounts etc are all under Murti. So when i went to renew my passport late last year i decided that i would finally get my passport issued under Murti too. But because its not listed in the birth certificate and my previous passport didnt have that name in it, they basically refused to do it. Because of all the terrorism going around, you have to present a original birth cerficate or citizenship with ur correct name. Now both these papers list my surname as Devi.
So i finally conceded and just said for them to go ahead and renew my passport under that surname. Then they asked me for some current identification with that surname:duh:. Duh! After i had just finished telling them that all my idenfication was already under the name of Murti. I told them that i had nothing to give them, to which they then replied that they would not reissue a passport under Devi as i had no current documentation supporting that fact.:duh:
So i said to them that they were refusing to give me a passport under Devi and under Murti so what was i suppose to do? My tone of voice by this time had developed some attitude to it:blush: which probably did not help matters.
So after a lot of arguing and waiting around i was finally told to go to the births,deaths and marriages register and get a change of name documentation (which cost me $130).
When i got to that office, i got into another argument over not having any current idenfication under the name Devi. After alot of:duh: i finally handed over the form and money and got my receipt only to be told that it could take anywhere from 8-11 weeks to process! So i went through my whole story how i needed it within the next 4-5 weeks.
The guy beind the counter was really nice and he said that if i brought my itinery, he could put rush on it for me. So atleast my story had a happy ending.
But the point i was trying to make was that stuff ups happen everywhere but surely not as much as you guys have had to deal with in india. Just think, not long to go now. Keep the patience. Hopefully though everything will be ready so that Neeraj wont have to miss his flight to Lucknow. Will pray that everything goes according to plan for you guys.
Poonam I went to the local police station and gave most of the documents required. The person over there will send the report on Monday or Tues. wheneven he gets the sign of this officer. Let’s see how much it takes, will go to the CID on monday. So much headache:duh:
u were right pareeka… i read ur post a bit n then skipped :P
read the start n end :P
Well, Poonam…like I said earlier….such things are not easy. U have to go through many barried before you attain your goal. But in the end, you will forget about all this!
Thanks Pareeka. I see that you have gone through a lot for your name in Australia!
Good to see that you did find someone that was useful and was able to speed up the process for you. We have not had that good luck yet. 
I did read the whole comment.
We have decided that its going to be almost impossible for Neeraj to go to Lucknow on the 20th. 
We are going to cancel the train tickets and get a reschedule on the plane ticket.
Oh Neeru.
I know that you are going through a lot because of this visa. I promise it will be worthwhile for both of us. 
I do hope that he does send it to the CID office as soon as possible.
No Mannat.
We are never forget this fiasco:!: Neeraj and I have gone through so much and that is one of the reasons that we are keeping this weblog so that we can jot down all of the problems that we have faced. Once this whole process is over I am going to make a K1 Visa for Mumbai site where other couples can check out the stuff that we went through so no one ever have to face what we have faced.
I know that in life nothing is easy — but this is ridiculous! I am not one to complain, I don’t like to or anything, and we are facing this through, but come on yaar, when you run takkar with these incompetant people you get frustrated.
It burns me that there are illiterate people at these positions that really they are not qualified to be in.
Don’t worry Kunal, i forgive u
That is really sad. I heard that they have centralized the whole clearance process for passports/visas in Bangalore thanks to a very efficient Passport Officer there. Its really depressing to see the state of affairs in the Mumbai office..and for that matter at most government offices back home.
Hope neeraj is able to find the right person to “Speed up the process”
Good luck to you both..dont worry..I am sure it will all work out just fine :)
You know, i’ve been thinking that perhaps the reason all government officials seem to be so unhelp comes down to the fact that in the end you have no choice but to clam down on ur impatience and suffer through their incompetence in order to get ur job done. Because lets face it, they’re not a company selling us a product, where if we dont like the service we can just choose to go elsewhere……we have NOWHERE else to go…..so perhaps they think that they can treat us public however they want because we will come back.
I dont know, that was just a thought that popped into my head……what do u think?
Nice to see your comment Ashwin after a long time.
I had also seen the website for Bangalore’s Passport office and saw how organized they were. Only if the rest of India was like that. 
Thanks for the nice words, it shall definitely work out, but its just taking more time than we wanted to spend on it.
I have come to the same conclusion Pareeka. They know that we have to come to them, and hence they are abusing their power. Those type of people shouldn’t be in office anyway.
Sometimes I wish I was @ a governmental position where I could make a difference. At one time I wanted to be an immigration officer, but then computers has always been my life. 