On Thursday and Friday, the Passport Seva Portal was affected by server issues. Operations were disrupted at Passport Seva Kendras across India. To report last-minute appointment cancellations and long delays, multiple users in cities such as Delhi, Bhopal, and Thane took to X (formerly Twitter).
Applicants with upcoming travel apps like Rahul Sharma were in distress, as Sharma had applied for his son's passport before a planned trip to the US next year. “The last-minute cancellation of my passport appointment is putting our trip to the US next year in serious trouble," he said. He had applied for his son's passport so they could all attend his daughter's graduation, but it was not possible to get the visa process in motion. He explained that the delays make it difficult to plan anything, especially with long US visa wait times.
Many people arrived at Passport Seva Kendras from across different cities but unfortunately, the centres were not functional.
X users claimed there were no dates available for rescheduling in the next few weeks; instead, the next available date was months later.
X user Darshil stated that he received a message from PSK saying that his appointment had been suspended due to a technical issue. He was further asked to reschedule the appointment as per his convenience. Darshil, in his X post, said, "Is the passport office going to pay me a penalty for this instance?"
Another applicant, Mehul Kothari, posted saying that he had an appointment for passport the next morning for his kids. He was asked to reschedule the appointment for the second time in two months due to technical issues. He further said " At 12 am, we received the message and they want people to stay here. Their app, too, is not working."
“@passportsevamea the website/app isn't working... we know that you don't want to travel seeing the conditions around, but still I want to renew my passport so kindly make your WEBSITE WORK.. Thanks," X user Abhishek Rathore posted on the social media website.
In many cases, applicants got the information about the server outage only once they reached the PSK. "The passport seva kendra pasted a notice due to a technical issue, unable to process a request. No SMS, email, or phone call regarding this to the applicant ...even people came to reach only after seva kendra. Gate is locked & no one is available," X user Vidya Nand Rai shared the notice posted in the Ghaziabad centre.
However, these complaints have not received any reply. The Ministry of External Affairs and the @passportsevamea account on X have not issued a public statement.
