- I Paid A Bribe
- 14 years ago
- 985 views
Paid bribe to agent to get Tatkal passport
- Passport
- Tatkal Passport
- Paid INR 7,000
I and my wife had come to India on a vacation from US and had to renew our visa in Chennai. The visa officer granted me visa but said my wife's passport was damaged (the lamination peeled off the photo page of the passport) and she had to get a new passport. We were traveling back to US within 10 days and decided to get a passport through Tatkal scheme. She is from AP and we had to go to Hyderabad to apply for a new passport.
The passport office's website allows Tatkal appointments which are released everyday, but after sitting conitnuosly in front of the computer for 5 days, we were still not able to get an appointment. Some agents had hacked the website and made sure no one got appointment online and the website always says 'Please try later.'
Then this is what we did: We got hold of an 'agent', and he instructed us to go to one of the innumerable number of 'photocopy' shops across the road from the office. We went there, paid a bribe of 1000 INR just to get a few photocopies of the required documents, he blocked an appointment for tatkal passport (Only GOD knows how he did it). He also instructed to enclose a bribe of 6000 INR in a white envelope as a bribe to the officer. He put all these documents in a specific colored folder.
We went to the office on the day of the appointment and the officer immediately recognizes the color of the folder and knows this had come through the agent. He quickly took the money that was in the envelope and said the passport would come home in 10 days. So in all I think we paid a total bribe of 10000 INR (including the police officer who brought the passport home and other related expenses of traveling to Hyd, staying there for a couple of weeks etc). This is in addition to the legal fees of 2500 (Tatkal fee to receive within 7 days) + 2500 (duplicate passport fee). After all this the passport came in 2 weeks not 7 days as promised. We had to eventually reschedule her US flight and that cost another 375 USD. That capped one of our worst trips to India.
P.S. The problem of the lamination peeling off the photo page of the passport seems to be happening very regularly at the Hyderabad Passport office. After this experience I made a few enquiries and some of my friends seemed to know someone else who had this issue and each and every one of them was from *******