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I know this is very informal way of expressing my experiences with our Indian Consulate at houston. Staying across the globe consulate/embassy is a place where we have to get immediate assistance if we are in need. But how far this is in our reach.

My simple story start with the renewal of my passport, of course for consulate people it is just an application and in turn they have to send a small booklet, but for us it is one of the most valuable thing in our house.

I started my process by filling the application , Mailing Fee for the application was stated diferently at two different places



With reference to above if I sent a combined cheque of $60 what they will think , $50 + 10 or $40 + 20 because in the whole application they didn't ask whether we need 36 pages or 60 pages booklet.

For Minor Child



For the Minor child passport they are asking $25 Dollars fee and for Change of Appearance it is $40. Normally minors they change a lot or if it is Turban to Non Turban then is it a New Passport+Change of Appearance or Just a New Passport.

If we try to reach them the chances are 1% , lucky guy can atleast get hold of them, I promise, I tried N number of times, for me there is no luck,

Processing time mentioned in the site is 4-7 days if it crosses this time we can reach them between 2-4 PM . I , my wife ,my friend we continuously dail the number on the site for almost 3 days but we are in no luck. Of course if you are not in a need thats Ok , but if you are in need this is big nightmare, issues with legal status, issues with identities all will arise.

A kind of story happened in the City of HYD , India. My freind, NRI went to local passport office to get his passport renewed. No sooner he went he was stopped by a man, he is not allowing any one to go inside and insisting to buy the forms outside the office.
Who was that person?
Is he an employee of the same office? The answer is NO.

Technically applications are free but why they are selling it for Rs 10?

Ok keeping those things aside , the procedure is we have to go the office at 4 in the morning. Stand in the line take a token and apply it at 10 AM and you will get that in one month if you go for expedite you will get in 7 days , but nothing is sure once the passpot is in, we have to live with their mercy no matter where you are. My friend went through a broker for renewal who promised that he will get that in 3 days. He took Rs 3000, after 3 days he told some story and again he took Rs 2000 and by the time he recieved his passport he spent Rs 8500 and that too he got that in 2 weeks exactly the day before he is travelling to US.

Posted by V

please post your comments Post your comments


Even if you reach them through ph , the way they answer your questions is very harsh.
I don\'t know how these people came to US , I mean on which Visa.
We have huge pool of english speaking people across the country, these people can\'t even speak a complete english sentence also.

By VR


I have sent my passport and it took more than a month and they have not send or updated me or sent a mail.
I have tried calling more than 100 times and it either directly goes to inbox with is always full and transfers to main main mail box and the message says, the inbox is full.
Tried sending emails, fax and phones. Got frustrated and thought let me fly to know the details.
Faxed three times about the status and wrote my frustration on the fax. finally some one from Houston Indian consulate called me and said that the passport would be mailed in a week or so.
It then took two weeks and finally I got the passport.
God some one save Indians atleast from Indians in USA
By IndianGuy