Cost of an Indian Passport

We might have helped a lot of countries implement better systems for homeland secutiry, VISA, passports, biometrics or whatever but when it comes to serving Indians the state of the government machinery is still pathetic !

I was born in a government hospital on May 15, 1980. A birth certificate was never issued to me. It was not mandatory and no one asked for it. In India it is perfectly legitimate to use the school certificate as a birth certificate. This was Dehradun which apparently itself moved from being a small district head quarter in Uttar Pradesh to being a State Capital in the last few years. 1980 to 1998 I was a full time resident of Dehradun living with my parents.

Years passed by and I moved from Dehradun to my engineering school which was 350 KMS away. I have a degree with honors and almost all the proof from the university that I was a student there.  Between 1998 to 2002 I was just a student trying to complete my Bachelor in Engineering.

2002 I moved for graduate studies to IIT Kanpur and in the Apr of 2014 while I was a student there, I enrolled for a passport. I didn't have any address proof, no document or anything to state where I resided except a letter from the Dean of Student Welfare and a copy of my Identity Card issues by IIT. Getting a passport was as easy as 1-2-3.

I moved to Bangalore in 2004 and from Bangalore moved to Singapore and then moved back to Bangalore. During my stays in Bangalore I stayed with my sister and her family or with friends. All these years I kept on submitting my Income Taxes with a PAN Card which was again issued by Government of India and I have been paying at least a couple of hundred thousand Indian Rupees.

I have perfect legitimate bank accounts, credit cards, a car, a motorbike and countless other things on which I keep paying the state taxes and they never question where I stay and how. But today when I have run out of pages on my passport the whole world has come to a grinding halt !


Just because I work in Bangalore and I am single who doesn't have enough money to buy a house, nor has a bank account with a Nationalized bank nor do I know some one high up in the ranks of the government who can certify my identity, because I work for a company which is not public limited [publicly owned and listed in Indian stock markets] and because I stay at my sister's place - it is very difficult for me to get a passport !

Is it a crime to stay with your family? When government has no problem accepting my income tax returns in my native town, why is my address so important - what is the real threat?

When I compare it with the respect and processes, that I came across in Singapore when I took my Permanent Residence it was so simple and straightforward. When will the government really make it simple. When will it be my right to get a passport rather than a privilege?

Until how many years this sarkari way of work continue ..and how many years will people like me suffer :(