ExpertDabbler

For dummies, PSK stands for Passport Service Kendras. Yes, that is where we have to go to get our passports issued, re-issued,etc. today I went to the PSK in Nelson Manickam road in my car. First mistake. Parking the car took almost the same time as driving there from my place.

My god, I know this country lacks so many things, but definitely either the government should ban cars ( mine included what the hell ) or get more public parking spaces. It is absolutely insane to let hundreds of new cars hit the road every day, and let them park/U-turn their way to glory in our 30 feet roads. The traffic police has gone crazy. I can’t imagine Anna Nagar Second Avenue is a one way! I was stunned when I found NO LEFT TURN boards all over.
What’s next? How about making ECR one way till PONDY? ECR? Yeah you can go to PONDY and you can take the GST to come back! What an idea! I think Chennai/TamilNadu traffic police will try that in 2012.

Eventually I parked my car in Shanthi colony Anna Nagar, and took an auto to the venue.

I have to say a thing or two about the venue and ambience. Very top class. I mean I was prepared for this based on feedback but the systems and processes, considering the sheer number of applicants they handle in a day, is brilliant. Kudos to the team.

One has to go through a 4 step process
A - enquiry,
B- document verification and submitting the information along with finger prints, photographs by a customer service executive,
C- verification by an RPO person,
D - granting by a higher ranked granting officer.

There are 4 counters for step A, 16 counters for step B, 4 for C, and 3 for D.

Things went well till step B for me, or so I thought before someone realized I did not have ‘ECNR’ stamped. Well, in good old days, one needed a degree certificate to get the coveted ECNR stamp, and I, at that point in time did not have my degree certificate in hand.
Eventually they put me on hold and asked me to bring the certificates later in the day.
The CSE who handled my case was quite rude and her work (i found later) was shabby. She behaved as if she was granting me the passport. I even made a point to note her name to give scathing feedback.

Since time was at a premium, landed in Anna Nagar real quick, had a samosa or two in Shree Mithai, and started my onward journey. That was an unusual breakfast to say the least.
Now, since I am in alien territory, I had asked my colleague on the best route to take while coming back. This person apparently had a score to settle, so he said, ‘ PK, 100 feet road should be relatively clear by 11.30 AM, perhaps you should take that’. For the next 45 minutes, I was in a jaanavasam oorvalam till I reached Kathipara.

I reached home in an hour and 15 mins., had a quick meal and kicked off my phase 2 journey. This time, surprisingly I could move to 3rd and fourth gears in 100 feet road. I reached the venue and was politely told,’ Buy a car if you want to, but go to hell for parking it’. This time I found a spot much closer - one of the by-lanes in Nm road. Read first para. God alone knows who had cursed me what.
I parked the vehicle, and grabbed a share auto to the venue. Since share autos own all the roads, they find it easy in chennai roads.

Once I reached the venue, I realized how relaxed the morning crowd was. This time the place resembled a ration shop distributing Krishna oil. But kudos to the staff, they managed the crowd really well.
They took 30 minutes to locate my file but after that things were smooth.
The CSE who handled me this time was quick and efficient. I was out of the place in about 2 hours.

Area of improvement. Well the pain point happens much before - in the PSK website. One bureaucrat, had got himself a room in walltax road near Central station and had spent considerable time to inflict maximum pain with minimum fuss. The solution? The ‘manage appointment’ link works only from 3.45 PM till the daily quota of appointments are booked - which is perhaps till 4 PM if you are lucky. If you thought IRCTC servers are slow. You should try this. I mean, you should really really try this. I cannot stress this enough. I tried for one week and 40 times before my wife booked this appointment. Well, If you don’t get it? Simple: try harder the next day!

This website is practically useless if I can’t book my appointment all through out the day.
If I cannot get the slot today, why not tomorrow, next week,next month? Why should there be a mad rush to book slots everyday? The net result is, one who could’ve booked in 3 minutes is
forced to spend hours on this site. plus there are brokers who make lot of money by assisting this. ( I was asked Rs. 600 just to book an appointment by one guy).

Overall: PSK is great. I hear passports are delivered real quick, which is awesome. kudos to TCS.

But their website SUCKS ( font size:72 font weight: BOLD ) big time.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2012 at 10:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.