Sunjay Sudhir, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE, has told Gulf News that Indian expats in Dubai may now walk in and apply for emergency passport renewals using the ‘Tatkal’ programme.
The decision comes after the Indian Consulate in Dubai hosted special walk-in camps to deal with the high demand for passport renewals. During the special camps held on two Sundays last month, almost 2,000 passport applications were processed.
As per online sources, The ambassador said the decision to allow walk-in service for all ‘Tatkal’ applications was made after community members expressed concerns about delays in securing appointments with BLS International, the outsourced service provider for passport applications, in an interview with Gulf News after a community interaction session in Dubai earlier this week.
“Some members brought up the problem of [being unable to acquire passport appointments].” They were grateful that the consulate had already had walk-in camps on [two] Sundays to ensure that there was no passport backlog. For the time being, all ‘Tatkal’ services are available on a walk-in basis [rather than by appointment].”
The envoy stated that the ‘Tatkal’ application walk-in service will be offered at BLS on all days of operation. It will begin in Dubai’s shopping malls and then spread to other emirates.
Processing On The Very Same Day
Emergency passport renewal under ‘Tatkal’ applications will be completed and delivered within a day, depending on the delivery method selected—by hand or through courier. Without police verification before granting the passport, only qualifying applications would be accepted under the ‘Tatkal’ category.
Urgent travel obligations, such as those resulting from a medical emergency or a family death, will be considered. Even under normal conditions, no appointment is necessary to process passport applications for older persons and babies.
The Greatest Demand
Sudhir stated that the consulate has done all possible to simplify operations and minimize the backlog. He said that the time it takes to get a passport appointment had been reduced to one week. “However, this is the shortest possible waiting period,” the ambassador explained.
With over 200,000 passports granted each year, the Indian Consulate in Dubai is one of the busiest consulates outside of India. Due to heavy demand, the mission is presently processing roughly 1,000 passports every day.
The massive rush has been ascribed to a sudden increase in the number of Indian expats seeking to travel after the COVID-19 travel restrictions were relaxed, according to the mission. Also, when social distancing restrictions were in place, the number of applications that might be approved increased.
The Sunday walk-in camps were arranged to handle passport renewals, visa renewals, employment applications, NRI certifications for educational reasons, and Police Clearance Certificates, among other things.
Spike In Airfares:
Community members also expressed worry over the expensive flying rates to and from India. According to the envoy. “However, since this is a market-driven pricing process, neither the Indian government nor the consulate or embassy has anything to do with it. But what we’ve done, and what I’ve told our community members, is that we’ve tried to get as many flights as possible so that costs may be reduced. Even in air bubbles, we were flying at a high rate – we were flying at 65 percent of the number of flights prior to the COVID. We’ve finally returned to pre-COVID levels.”
