Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi: The online portal for passport applications, Passport Seva, will be temporarily unavailable for five days due to a scheduled maintenance exercise, the government has announced. As a result, no new appointments can be booked during this period, and those already scheduled will be rescheduled.
According to an official notice on the Passport Seva portal, the system will be down from 8:00 PM IST on Thursday, August 29, 2024, until 6:00 AM IST on Monday, September 2, 2024. The notice further clarified that the portal would be inaccessible not only to citizens but also to all authorities involved, including the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Regional Passport Offices (RPOs), Bureau of Immigration (BOI), Indian Security Press (ISP), Department of Posts (DoP), and police authorities.
The Ministry of External Affairs has emphasized that this maintenance activity is a routine procedure. “We have contingency plans in place to handle the rescheduling of appointments. Maintenance for public-centric services, such as the Passport Seva Kendras, is always planned well in advance to minimize any inconvenience to the public. Rescheduling appointments will be managed efficiently,” a ministry source stated.
The Passport Seva portal is the primary platform for booking appointments at passport centers across India, whether for new passport applications or renewals. On the scheduled appointment day, applicants are required to visit the passport centers with their documents for verification, followed by a police verification process. The passports are then dispatched to the applicant’s address. Applicants have the option to choose between the regular service, which takes 30-45 working days, or the Tatkaal service, which delivers the passport within a few days.
