Even though I am not willing to travel because..

Finally I have got the passport renewed which makes me travel ready. It got expired couple of years back, and I did not have much interest in renewing it, because, I did not have any interest for any International travel (which has further deteriorated because of Trump😀), but there are certain process in work place, which pushed me for a renewal. At this age, I am not willing to go abroad and learn cooking because outside food is almost extinct for me and they won't sponsor the visa of my wife. I will tell you the most fun part of this at the end, but before that, I must mention the details about the renew process.

If you do not know, then you can renew it easily within three years of expiry, so pay attention to that. I have already given a heavy price of not paying attention to my driving license renewal, unfortunately there is no notification system in these process to remind us in time, so we will have to create one for ourselves.

First you will have to fill an online application and pay the fee, I had trouble paying the fee (shared in this post, but finally it went through, after which I had to select a date from a 5 day windows that includes only working days - no Saturday, Sunday or Holiday. Then you will have to go to the Passport Seva Kendra where you have taken the appointment, for a physical verification. Earlier these offices were being managed by Government and used to be a big office at another place, but right now, this is entirely outsourced to TCS. Before going there, you must check what documents are required for Re-issue of Passport here :

https://services2.passportindia.gov.in/psp/docAdvisor/reissuePassport

For me it was not much, but the document list for Non-ECR categories was quite vague.

I did go with all possible documentation that I understood to be necessary, but then people standing in the queue started a discussion in which someone told me, I should have brought my original PAN card, and most likely they will reschedule my appointment. It's always a fun to talk to unknown people in such places, to pass the time, but don't listen to them and instead go and verify yourself with officials. TCS should have made the entry counter a little bigger, it was pretty small to handle the crowd in that slot. For my renewal, all they wanted is the Aadhar card, but a verified Aadhar - do you know what it is ? It's as simple as verifying your details and downloading it from the UIDAI website, but then they wanted a printed copy. Nowhere they mentioned about this and I had to go to the nearest shop outside of the building to get one. They have allowed someone to have a machine inside, that helps to get photocopies or print outs, but downloading aadhar was not possible there.

Taking advantage of this remote place, the person charged me 120 INR which was unjustified - he made a story of they paying charges to government for license to download and print, which did not go well with me, but in the interest of time I paid the price. But after coming, I have downloaded an electronic copy myself - it comes password protected, which is combination of first four letters of your name in CAPITAL letters and year of birth in YYYY format. There is also an option for masked Aadhar, which I have downloaded as well - who know, we may need them, so keep them handy. In case you can't remember the password, then you can print to PDF and have it without password protection, but make sure, you don't share in public as there are many scams happening now.

Inside everything is streamlined - they have got three counters A, B, C and your token name gets displayed once your turn comes. The entire process took a little less than an hour, and was quite satisfactory compared to the old government managed process.

A small Cafe Coffee day outlet with some nice beverages - Lemon tea was very refreshing.

The renewal process keeps sending updates by SMS and a police verification was initiated for which I had to go to the police station and show the Aadhar card to verify, but that was all. Within a week, all the process completed, and finally I have got the new Passport.

And now the most fun part - after seeing my passport the entire family is behind me to renew theirs - they want to go to Vietnam, after seeing one of my friend's trip photos. It's not very expensive - everyone is trying to convince me :) - We should have at least one International family trip..... Oh, really !!!

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