Recently, I had applied for a new passport at the Mumbai Passport Office. And I had a horrible taste of inefficient processes still used at the passport office. My passport was missing for more than 2 months and when I inquired about it both at passport office and the post office, I got totally absurd answers.

Finally I managed to find out the problem and was able to track my passport which was by mistake delivered to RAJKOT. I was then able to retrieve it from there. For someone who could not track it, he/she would need to apply for the passport once again and go through the same processes again.

I have mentioned below, how you can exactly track your passport delivery without wasting your time quarreling with the passport office etc.

Step 1 :

Carefully Save the slip delivered to you when your passport application is submitted. Note down the File Reference Number of your passport, that might go something like this :

"BOM L006906"

Step 2 :

After regular intervals, keep checking the passport status at your regional passport website. For Mumbai, the Web address Goes, something like this :

http://passportstatus.nic.in/passmain.php?city=bom

After Entering the earlier passport file number, I get the status as following :



Step 3 :

Now starts the most interesting part, neither the passport office nor the post office have any clue about how soon your passport will be delivered to you from here. If you are lucky, you might get your passport in 10 or 15 days. But if you are not, you might not get anything for 1-2 months and will not even be able to know the status of your passport.

So , in the passport status page, Note the following two details :

Passport has been despatched by post on 01-04-2010 vide postal Registration Number 187

Remember the Date : 01-04-2010 and

Remember the Registration Number : 187

Step 4:

Now, send someone to the regional passport office. Do not ask him to stand in any inquiry queue because that will waste several hours of your time and you will still not get a satisfactory answer.

Instead : Find out a section inside the passport office where the speed post people sit and dispatch the passports.

Go to them and request them to give you the 11 digit tracking number of your passport delivery, which should look something like this :

EM *********IN

e.g. EM203400966IN

Step 4:

Now, go to the speed post tracking website :

http://services.ptcmysore.gov.in/speednettracking/

Step 5 :

Now in the above page, enter that tracking number and you will get the entire status of movement of your package which might look something like this :



Step 6 :

Carefully notice, which was the last post office to where your passport was shipped and contact that office in case you want to retrieve your passport.

Thank you