Indian Passport

This is my 2 time India passport renewal, I am adding the steps and my experience,

08/16/2021 - VFS verified the documents and updated as sent documents to Embassy of India
09/01/2021 - Passport print is initiated, and saw the Email Police Verification sent to India address.
09/03/2021 - Police visited to Indian address came from commissioner of police between 11.30Am to 12.30Am, door locked no one exists
09/04/2021 - Police visited again at the same time- door locked no one exists
09/05/2021 - This time police visited at 9Am, this time some one at home, they took police officer number, I called the officer he asked to provide the documents(Aadhar card, PAN card, 2- neighbors reference)
09/06/2021- Passport application is under review at Indian Embassy/Consulate.

Do not know what is going to happen now,

Hi All,

The Following is the timeline i went through for re-issuing an Indian Passport (General) with Chicago Embassy through VFS International by post :

08/24/21 -- Submitted the Documents along with the Shipping Label to local Fedex Store.

08/26/21 -- Status email : " We have 'Received' your application and your application is now 'Under Process' at Chicago and will be submitted to the Mission for decision making.

08/27/21 -- Status email : " Your Application has been 'Processed' at the VFS India Consular Application Centre and currently is 'In - Transit' to the Embassy of India/Consulate General of India for Decision making."

08/30/21 -- Status email : " Initiation of Police Verification Request(s) for your Passport Application File (No . US7............)

09/01/21 -- Status email : " Your Application has been reviewed by the Embassy of India / Consulate General of India & will be dispatched using the courier service you had opted. "

09/02/21 -- Fedex Tracking Number received in email.

09/02/21 -- Status email : " Your document (s) is dispatched using the return label purchased or sent by you. If using VFS Courier, please check for email from " [email protected]" for details.

09/03/21 -- Received old and new passport.

Total Cost -- About 127 $ (including shipping).

All the best to all of you.

It’s been almost 4 months since I sent the passport for renewal.
 

Your application has reached at the Embassy/Consulate and is currently under review process Seeing this for 2 months now . Expiration is on September 22/2021. How could I contact someone?

It took 3 weeks for passport renewal process. Submitted to VFS and was forwarded to Embassy in a day and the passport was under review for 2 weeks and after that status changed to passport will be printed. During this time recieved an email for police verification since I added Indian address, Police went the same day and my brother who lives at the address completed the verification process. The same day status changed to passport application is under review at the embassy/consulate. This status worried me because i thought there is something wrong. I emailed the consulate on Monday and they replied saying my passport is printed and this step is just one of the procedures that the consulate does. The next day status changed to passport printed and the very next day status changed to passport will be delivered to VFS. Recieved today after a total of 3 weeks. No additional documents requested. Overall smooth process. Happy to answer any questions.

Hello All,

Recently got my passport renewed at Houston center and experience has been super-awesome. Opted for VFS courier service.

1. 30-July-21 - Dropped Application packet at FedEx on 30-July-21.
2. 02-Aug-21 - Packet delivered to VFS. Confirmation from VFS that they received my application.
3. 03-Aug-21 - Your Application has been 'Processed' at the VFS center and is submitted to the Mission for decision making.
4. 04-Aug-21 - Your Application is received. You will receive an update once it is processed at Mission. Avg processing time at Mission is 4-6 weeks except Tatkal cases.
5. 04-Aug-21 - On passport portal. Passport under review.
6. 05-Aug-21 - Passport print is initiated.
7. 05-Aug-21 - Passport has been printed.
8. 06-Aug-21 - Passport has been handed over by the Embassy/Consulate to the OSP executive for further dispatch to the applicant.
9. 06-Aug-21 - Your Application has been reviewed by the Embassy of India/ Consulate General of India & will be dispatched using the courier service you had opted.
10. 09-Aug-21 - Received email from FedEx that shipment label has been created.
11. 10-Aug-21 - Scheduled to receive passport.

In India, Tatkal cases are never get processed this quickly. Super happy with the overall process. Followed every instruction mentioned in checklist document. No Address change for me.

Hi All,

I completed online portion of my passport renewal application on both GOI website as well as the VFS website. My passport is due to expire on 09/21.

Although I am not sure, but I think I may have mixed up the dates of issue and expiry of my current passport in VFS portion of the application and there is no way for me to know as the only thing I can access is the confirmation letter which does not have any details. I have paid the Tatkal fee as I have to travel to India soon.

Any ideas what should I do? Will application be rejected and lose my money?

Thanks for any suggestions or comments.

Ravi

On the Passport SEVA website, the current status of the passport says, "Print has been initiated for passport". What does this mean in terms of the process? Also, I did receive an email from the government website like 4 days ago, saying that there will be a police verification done, but when I checked the status on the website, the above message appears. Anyone have similar experience or share anything you may know to how far is my process so far.

Thanks!

Got married recently and wanted to change my last name to my husband's and add his name to my passport as spouse. No need of name change affidavit. Sent a notarized copy of marriage certificate along with the standard required documents for passport renewal. Below is the timeline.

Jul 11 - Dropped of the application packet with VFS generated Fedex Label

**on VFS site **** **
Jul 12 - Your application is received .You will receive an update once it is processed at VFS.
Jul 13 - We have ‘Received’ your Application and your application is now ‘Under Process’ at New York and will be submitted to the Mission for decision making.
Jul 13 - Your Application has been ‘Processed’ at the VFS India Consular application Centre and currently is ‘In-Transit‘ to the Embassy of India/Consulate General of India for decision making.
Jul 13 - Your application has reached at the Embassy/Consulate and is currently under review process

**on Indian passport portal***
Jul 14 - You application with fee details received
Jul 15 to Jul 26 - Passport Under review
Jul 26 to Jul 30 - Passport print is initiated
Jul 30 to Aug 3 - Passport has been printed
Aug 3 to Aug 4 - Passport is printed and will be delivered shortly
Aug 4 - Passport has been handed over by the Embassy/Consulate to the OSP executive for further dispatch to the applicant.

**on VFS site ****
Aug 4 - Your Application has been reviewed by the Embassy of India/ Consulate General of India & will be dispatched using the courier service you had opted.
Aug 4 - Received email from Fedex that the shipment label is created
Aug 4 - Your document (s) is dispatched using the return label purchased or sent by you
Aug 5 - Received both old and new passports

It took little more time than I expected. But, overall, happy. Especially VFS is faster in processing. All the delay happened at the Consulate..

I recently applied for renewal of passports for my parents and wanted to share the experience since I believe it would be useful. I searched for details a lot prior to applying and I couldn't find much credible information.

My parents are visiting me in the USA and I wanted to renew (re-issue) their passports within USA to avoid hassles of doing it back in India amidst pandemic. All the online resources say that we cannot renew passports for B1/B2 visas in USA. That is incorrect. We can renew the passports for the tourist visa holders in USA.

Jun 28th: Applied the online application, paid online in VFS and sent the package in VFS provided courier service
Jun 29th: Package reached VFS and got confirmation.
Jun 30th: Application got rejected since the VFS office was Chicago but government application was created to San francisco consulate. (I live in Washington and I had previously applied for my passport re-issue to SF consulate. I used the same Passport Seva account. That was the problem. We need to create new account for each jurisdiction) I got refund of the passport fee but not the courier fees and VFS processing fee.
Jul 8th: We got the rejected application back from the VFS.
Jul 9th-10th: We created new application, paid again to VFS.
Jul 12th: We couriered the new application pages to VFS Chicago.
Jul 13th: New package was received by the VFS Chicago.
Jul 14th: We got an email saying the applications are on hold due to the photos sent. They claimed that the photos sent had either a non-white background or shadow. Our guess is that the background was not white. We took the photo in Walgreens and it was a little off-white only but they claimed that it was acceptable for passport.
Jul 16th: We took better photos, attached the photos with the notification email and couriered it back to VFS. The recommendation was to write "MATCH UP" on the envelope label to help VFS match the photos with already sent applications.
Jul 19th: The photos reached VFS and we got the notification from VFS about it.
Jul 20th: VFS updated status to "Application is being processed" (not exact sentence)
Jul 21th: VFS updated status to "Application is processed in VFS and is sent to the consulate"
Jul 22nd: VFS updated status to "Application has reached the consulate and it can be tracked in passport seva site". I didn't read the status correctly, so I kept checking for update in VFS site.
Jul 23rd: That day evening when I checked the Passport Seva site, the status message was similar to "Application is processed and the package is being handed over to the outsourced agency (in this case VFS)". I was extremely surprised. Our passports were with the consulate for only two days. They had processed and printed the new passport in that short duration.
Jul 26th morning: Got notification from VFS that they have received the passports from consulate.
Jul 26th morning: Got email that the police verification has began for the two applications. Here you can see that the police verification began only after the new passports were printed. Reason being, India has changed its police verification policy into two. Pre-verification and Post-verification. Pre-verification is used for new passports. Post-verification is used for re-issue of passports that too if there are no changes to particulars. Its possible that pre-verification is used for re-issue as well on case by case basis. If you include the Aadhar numbers in the government passport application, by default you will have only post-verification. (Perks of having Aadhar)
Jul 26th evening: Got updated from VFS that the package is being sent via FedEx. Got FedEx notification with tracking ID as well via email.
Jul 27th: Got the new passports and the old passports for both my parents. All particulars were as expected.

Things to note:
- Since we are re-issuing from USA, we need to mention a US address in the Government application form. I mentioned Indian address in the "Address to print" field and the US address in the "Other address" field. The consulate jurisdiction and VFS jurisdiction should be based on this US address that you enter in the application.
- Make sure that the passport photos are on pure white background without shadow or any shade. My suggestion is to avoid FedEx, Walgreens, CVS or Costco to take the photo. Reach out to a proper photo studio. The cost different is not a lot, for me it was actually cheaper than Walgreens.
- "Other address" column in the government application for US address does not have a specific field for state. It only has 3 lines for address. Please make sure that the address in this matches exactly with the address you want the passport to be couriered back to.
- For any passport re-issue after 10 years of previous issue, we definitely need to attach "Change of appearance" form. For any aged people.
- We got the police verification also done in India though both my parents are in USA. I had shared the particulars like the passport copies, Aadhar copies, other IDs like PAN or Voter ID copies, and the application details to my relative. Though I gave the right Indian address to be printed on the government application form, I gave the phone number of my relative. He was called by the police to meet the police officers at a particular time with the particulars and documents mentioned above (and some cash).

Though I took this process very seriously and was getting overwhelmed with it, if the steps are followed to precision, the process has no other hassles. Appreciate the new VFS based renewal process. It has improved a lot since I renewed my passport 8 months back.

Hi all,

I am submitting online govt application form from usa for passport renewal, please help me with the addresses i need to fill..i filled address and other address as indian adresses…is that fine or should i need to give 1usa address and 1india address