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My issue is similar to that of Amit above.

Two of my family members - a senior citizen and his wife - had applied for passport last month. The appointment on 23.01.2024 went off without any issue, as did the subsequent police verification.

However, the passport is yet to be printed, with the following message being shown for over a fortnight now.



What next?

It is a regular message so nothing to worry I guess. Please remember that police still have to do the legwork of verification. Usually it may take a month or so depending on the application or inspector work load. If things don't move forward post that you can try to visit the police station to check if they have dispatched verification report to RPO. I'm assuming there was no change of residence in last 1-2 years, otherwise police have to verify other addresses also which may take some time.

Thanks.

But they had received the below message soon after the police verification.



And upon checking in the Sakala portal for Police Verification status, this message is thrown up.

What is the status of Biometric Passport, does anyone work in TCS passport seva project 2.0 or any contacts in the Government who is aware of this ?

It was supposed to start in Bangalore RPO around Dec 2023, but as usual from 2017, once in a while news pops-up regarding the issuance and then it dies down after a couple of months.

I applied for passport reissue (no change in address) in Normal category and received passport next day itself by post. I did not receive any message from passport office for police verification. Now I received a call from local police station that post verification is required. Is it fine?

I thought post police verification is applicable only for tatkal category. Thanks

Even if there is no change in address, type of verification is still at the discretion of the issuing authority. It would mention on your application receipt what type of verification (or no verification) they granted you. I believe they granted you passport on post-verification basis which means the police verification happens post the passport issuance.

I have a similar situation, where I received my passport and am waiting for police verification on the same. I also need to apply for US Visa on an urgent basis. Is it okay to go ahead with visa application while waiting for verification to happen?

Many NRIs apply for passports for their children by specifying addresses in India, which in my opinion
1. is bad, and borderline illegal as the child clearly doesn't live in the India address.
2. makes it easy for the parents to get fleeced by the police, who know that the applicant is an NRI.

I've heard of instances where the police have contacted the relatives in India living at the address and have applied pressure to extract bribes. "Do you know what will happen if I don't give a favorable response to the passport office" type of a threat. All NRIs should switch to using local addresses at least at the time of passport renewal. An Indian address is also a must in the application (which I think is quite frankly idiotic. What of people who have no relatives at all, or at least nobody who is considered close enough?) Specifying the mandatory Indian address as the secondary address doesn't seem to trigger any actual police verification, though the status message notes that verification is in progress. I've made applications for myself, my wife, and my son, and in each case, the primary address has been my local Swedish address and the secondary address has been my parents' address in India, and there has not been a single time where the police have contacted my parents, though I'd provided my parents with an advance information every time I applied for a passport extension. And my final peeve? Why have the address in the passport at all? There are other documents such as driver's license, Aadhaar, Voter id, etc which serve the purpose of being address proof documents so why insist on recording the address in the passports? I don't think any western country has the address in the passport either, but it still is used in the Indian passport, and I suspect that in majority of the cases, that address is no longer accurate or current!

Usually police verification is relatively quick in Bangalore and I have seen it happening with in 1-2 weeks. If you have got sms that police verification is initiated then you can visit the police station along with your documents and meet the office to expedite the process. Else they usually call you to go and visit them. If you are in a hurry, you can reach out to the officer as soon you receive the verification sms.

Agreed about the passport verification part in India.

There was no verification done on my passport when I applied for renewal in 2018 from USA. I had my Indian address mentioned in my renewal form and a local address.

Not sure about other countries but renewing Indian passport in USA (when I did in 2018) is usually:
1. Submitting an application online
2. Printing the filled in form, along with the mentioned list of documents as per check list and the checklist as well
3. Label gets generated using which all the forms, list of documents are sent via mail with the attached label. Guess existing passport should also be sent along
4. In about 2 or 3 weeks, the renewed password, old passport would arrive at your local address
5. There was no verification done for Indian address

I have my Indian address printed in passport, issued Indian Embassy is from USA

I felt renewal from USA was way better than renewing passports from India (did that for rest of my family in 2022) because you need not visit in person.

Went through my quickest experience with passport office. Passport was up for renewal in 6 months. Submitted application and selected appointment on Friday (today). Got a slot at 4.30PM.

Got to the office (Passport Seva Kendra) at 4.25PM. Only 5-6 people were in my batch. Got all process (3 desks) done in around 15-20 minutes and got out by 4.50. Got SMS at 4.57 that the application is granted. Checked the website, and confirmed that it is granted with post-verification for my new address.

All staff (TCS and govt) were courteous and helpful. My experience with passport office has been good in general, but this one really exceeded my expectations. Shows what is possible with respect to government services.

Hoping to receive the new passport soon.

I wanted to renew a family members passport which is expiring next month.

In the supporting documents required page they are asking for Proof of Birth which can be a birth certificate/voter ID/PAN. Aadhar is not listed here. In the second column for Proof of Address they are asking for Aadhar.

Is Proof of Birth a new requirement to renew a passport?

I remember last year when I renewed a passport only Aadhar was needed to be produced as supporting documents.

Does anyone has more info on this?

I recently got my Aadhar updated (per the Govt.'s recommendation that it should be updated every 10 years), and had the new card delivered. It clearly states,

"Aadhar is proof of identity, not of citizenship or date of birth".

The bit in bold is new - looks like they realized that the documents used to get the Aadhar card can be easily compromised. Overall, the Govt. seems to be using Aadhar to run around like a headless chicken.

I am on my third passport and during both the renewals, they still asked me 10th pass certificate :unhappy Both renewals were in Bangalore.
Luckily I knew about this weird requirement so I had carried any and all supporting documents. Would advise the same. In fact, they may ask for birth certificate if birth year is later than 1989 if I recall correctly. Aadhar is not considered proof of DoB or citizenship so I find it weird that they still insist on it like it is THE document :Frustrati

That is required for ECNR. Things have improved, but not that improved. :)