Dasara vacation puts your passport on hold

BANGALORE: Don't be surprised if you find it difficult to get an appointment at Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) for this week. As many officials are on Dasara vacation, PSKs are cutting back appointments from Tuesday.
At the Lalbagh PSK for instance, appointments are reduced from 1000 to 700 or 800. "This had to be done to reduce waiting time," passport officials told TOI.
Those who sought appointments on Monday had to wait for more than 3 hours to complete document verification. "I was sent to the verification counter at 1pm but had to wait till 4pm to get the documents checked," Ramakrishna R, who had this experience at the Lalbagh office, told TOI.
Another person, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said earlier the service was much better. "We didn't have to wait for such a long time. We've been waiting for the past four hours. This system is very disorganized," he said.
Officials said: "There is no other way to solve this problem but to reduce appointments. Nearly 1000 tokens are given at PSK 1 in Lalbagh and 600 tokens at PSK 2 in Marathahalli every day. There are eight officials in the verification zone in Lalbagh but only five were on duty on Monday," officials said.
At the granting zone, there were only five officials and the other counters were closed. Officials admitted that it was a herculean task for five officers to handle all 1000 applications. "Some officials at the granting zone, where applicants are given acknowledgment of receipt of application after verification is done, will go on leave from Tuesday," the officer added.