Indian Passport Information Guide

Passports just as important official document as any other when it comes to prove identity of an individual. It’s an important credential that helps in other important documents and forms. Obtaining a passport isn’t that an easy process, one has to stick to some rules and regulations in order to get a passport. Indian government authority issues passport to its citizens to enable them to travel to other countries. Indian ministry of external affairs and visa authority of India is responsible to scan the applications been put for obtaining a passport.

Indian passport is blue in its cover and carries a symbol of national emblem on it. A four headed tiger is spruce up on the cover. Above this symbol is written a word “passport” in English and Hindi language. Indian passport has 36 pages in it but a person who flies often can opt for 60 page passport. Identity information is printed on first page of the passport and is laminated to avoid any manipulation in the information printed on it. This information usually contains person’s photograph, signature of the passport holder, country code, passport number name, surname and the date of expiry of the passport. Nationality, sex, date of birth, date of issue of passport, all this information is also present in the passport.

The last page of the passport beholds the information of father’smother name, address of the holder, date of issue and the file no. the usual time period for issuing of the passport is three months which includes verification procedure too. If anybody requires passport much faster than the three months, one has to shell an extra fee to procure the passport. 36 page passports have the validity of ten year and 1000 Indian rupees are charged as a fee to obtain the passport. For a 60 page passport the fee charged is Rs 1500. For the minor’s whose age is below 15 yrs the passport fee is Rs 600 and its validity is of five years till the minor reaches the age of 15 or whichever is reached earlier. One should always keep the passport safe and secured as if a passport is lost the fee for issuing a new one is quite higher than the normal charges. Rs 2500 and Rs 3000 are charged for 36 and 60 page passport respectively.

Passports can be availed from the 33 public passport offices all over the country. Government officials and the courier service provider are issued with a maroon color cover passport. The 36 and 60 page passport is used for the vacations and the business purposes by the Indian citizens. Apart from these general passports special passports are also issued to travel to specific countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. These passports doesn’t require visa to travel to the countries. The year 2009 saw a significant development in the passports that were issued till the date. E-passports are been introduced for those who use diplomatic passports. E-passports have a microchip with the photograph of the owner and hisher personnel details. Though these passports are issued for a certain category of the current holders, it will soon be made available for general public passports too.