The intimidating passport office: A personal experience

When I was about to knock on the door of the deputy director of the Agargaon passport office a few months back, a security guy cautioned me: Please do not knock on her door. She is very hot-tempered and she does not like to be disturbed.

What? I never wanted to meet her in the first place. But I have been waiting for nearly two years for the issuance of my son's new passport and I was finally told that I should meet the deputy director to finish the job. What am I supposed to do if I am told that this public servant is an angry official? Bow down or what?

Fortunately, the deputy director called me soon enough. She must have heard the commotion. I was glad that maybe she is not the angry woman that the security guard was saying. I went in and told her my plight in short: My son applied for his passport in February 2020 and he was supposed to get it just two months later. But he did not. The passport office made him go through verification by the Special Branch of police twice and updated his National Identification (NID) card and submitted all necessary documents – but we have not received the passport.

What I told her in half a minute was a summary of the following:

My son applied for his passport in February 2020 along with his name change. The name change is a huge issue at the passport office. But no issue is huge if you submit all necessary documents. In March, the Special Branch of police verified his case and sent its report to the passport office.

Then nothing happened. We kept on waiting for an SMS from the passport office.

Then came the first lockdown in May 2020.

When things opened up partially, I contacted the passport office – but they said they had suspended the services for now.

In August, some officials acknowledged the passport application and said they were working on it.

Then, we welcomed 2021. After a few months of futile enquiries about "what happened to that passport", I asked a friend to help me. He had some business at the Agargaon passport office and knew the people there.

The passport office then told my friend that the application was very "complicated" – and it is not easy to get the passport.

First, he needs to update his NID. The passport office could have told us about this long ago. But nobody did. Anyway, my son's NID was updated earlier this year.

Then I waited. I talked to some high officials who assured me that the passport will be issued very soon. But that "soon" never came.

Finally, my friend had some high official look at the application. The "high official" instantly ordered "full inquiry" into the application. "Full inquiry?" I was perplexed, "all inquiries have been done."

"I cannot do anything if he has asked for a full inquiry!" my friend said.

So, the passport office once again asked the Special Branch for a report. The Special Branch office instantly recognised the applicant. So, they called me up and asked me if I could go to their office along with my son.

The SB office basically wanted to know why there should be a second verification when it had already been done more than a year ago. Did we do something wrong? As a senior SB official talked to me, he realised the passport office had "lost" the original verification because some "dutiful" employees did not upload the verification report to their server.

The SB official noted that in recent times, such problems with the passport office were rising.

I already knew what was wrong with the passport office: Nobody there gives a damn to the people they are serving. The whole passport office is run by VIPs – from a peon to the top, everyone is the most important person in the world.

We got a second verification of the same thing for nothing in August. Then in September, nothing happened. Nobody added the new SB verification report to my son's application. We pushed for it and the report was finally added.

Now, we are here at the deputy director's office in early November. After hearing me out briefly, she asked me to upload all of the documents of my son that were originally provided along with the passport application from February 2020 to their server and come back with the applicant.

I never argue with public servants who do not care about people. What is the point?

I got up and left her room. Someone helped me upload these "classic" files to their server.

I returned to the "angry" deputy director next week with my son and waited for what seemed an eternity as nobody was there to tell us when she would be there. I met her eventually for a brief time and she once again asked for some original copies of the documents provided.

She was making sure that next time, I would get an allergic reaction if someone asked me to meet her again.

But I complied. The passport application now awaited another "approval" process. When it was done later that month, my friend told me that now it went to the print queue. But nobody knew when this printing would be done because there was a problem with the Machine Readable Passport project.

If it was an e-passport, they could issue it right away, said my friend who helped me all along.

"Then ask them to issue an e-passport," I said.

"They cannot do it now," he added.

So, how do I ensure I get this passport? I turned to the top bureaucrats at the ministry. With his help, things again started moving.

I found that the "angry" deputy director did not send the file to print. After a top bureaucrat asked about its whereabouts, someone sent it to print and I was assured that this would be delivered within "this" Thursday.

Another week passed. With the help of a senior reporter colleague, I finally got hold of the passport that was printed the previous week. But due to a problem with their SMS service, they could not inform us. Oh never mind! Just give us the passport and end this nightmare.

My son got the passport in mid-December. Let us congratulate him – what an achievement! He got a new passport against the will of the passport office.

And what passport office do we have at Agargaon! It is a passport office without any parking space for people. It does not have enough space for people to wait outside. It was designed not to serve the public, but the officials and their cronies who are not happy serving the people.