• I Paid A Bribe
• 14 years ago
• 1248 views

Getting a new passport - a harrowing tale

• Passport
• New Passport Application
• Paid INR 3,000

What started off as a regular business trip (for a few days) to Delhi turned into the most harrowing experience I've ever had. While in Delhi, my business itinerary changed and I had to apply for a visa to travel to another country. In this process, my passport, although under highly suspicious circumstances, was damaged or rather tampered with by the authorized visa agent I had gone through. At this point I had to apply for a new passport because it was beyond repair.

I thought getting a replacement passport would be relatively straight forward given the circumstances and the fact that I didn't live in India and had to travel back for work. To my utter dismay, the process took 1.5 months, which became even more disappointing because of the number of times I was asked to “help speedup” the process. Each time I was asked to “help speedup” the process I declined, which nonetheless added to the lengthy process of obtaining a new passport. However, the difficulty of not being able to work from my office and the accumulating costs of staying in Delhi for 1.5 months inevitably led me to “help speedup” the process. After negotiating with a string of officials that desired a special incentive to expedite the process of my passport application, the final stage of the process required a police clearance from the Delhi Police.

Since I didn’t live in Delhi or in India it was inconceivable that I would have a permanent address in India. This became a point of contention between me and the Delhi Police constable who at first demanded a staggering figure of Rs.25,000 but later settled for Rs.3,000—the drop in his demanded resulted from my threat of walking into his office and placing Rs.25,000 on his desk in front of all his colleagues. He backed off because he knew I would actually do something that eccentric because I was about to exhaust my patience, however, since I also required his signature both of us made concessions in our demands. I paid him Rs.3,000 and he signed off on the documents—and wished me a happy journey.

What I realised from this experience was that, while not all officials are necessarily unsympathetic or corrupt, I would be very sceptical about approaching any institutions or officials of the Government of India for help – because I simply do not want my need for help being seen as an opportunity for monetary exploitation by corrupt government officials. I am stunned at their voracious appetite for monetary gain through illicit means that is continuously infecting officials of the Indian government.