Online Renewal of Pakistani Passport

Online Renewal of Pakistani Passport 

The moment was approaching which i was dreading for a while...my Pakistani passport which had validity of 5 years was expiring and i had to get it renewed. 5 years ago when i renewed it i had to go to Pakistan embassy in Frankfurt, Germany. Which not only costed me considerable amount of money but also time. At that time they were issuing Passports for only 5 years.

This time around i called Pakistani embassy in Prague to inquire if they are making the passports here already. I was told that they are still not making it and that i can go to either Frankfurt or Berlin for getting my passport renewed.  After that phone call i started planning my trip. This time i choose to go to Berlin, as it was near and i could go there by bus. Around that time a friend of mine shared a post from a blog on Facebook that Pakistan has started online service of renewing of passports for overseas Pakistanis.

This was indeed a pleasant surprise for me as it meant i will not have to go to Berlin do all the travelling,taking days off from work and the paperwork. I tried to ask around my friends, if anyone of them have used this service but couldn't find anyone who used online service for renewal of the passport.

So i decided to go for the online renewal. I got hold of a place where i could scan,print and upload documents. According to the website of  Directorate General Immigration and Passports, the estimated time to make application is given to be 16.5 minutes. In actual it took me close to 2 and half hours... if i take out my struggles with trying to get my finger prints with help of ink and struggles with convincing the website that my eyes do exist. Keep reading the post to know what it means ;)

The steps of making your account and going through the application are very well defined on the website. So i did not had any trouble or confusion during that process. However when i reached the part where i had to upload my photo. It was quite a struggle. I took my multiple pictures with my mobile phone and uploaded one of them. Before uploading i made sure that i have it in correct format and measurements as given on the website. However i kept on getting the message "Eyes not detected" , i tried with different sizes and different pictures but nothing worked. I almost gave up on uploading a photo, but than i decided to upload the picture without any corping or resizing. Guess what ? the website accepted my photo which i uploaded without any modifications.

After uploading the photo, next difficult process was taking my finger prints. I would say it was my mistake that i tried taking my finger prints with normal ink rather than buying a proper stamp pad. So a tip here, just buy a stamp pad for taking finger prints, it will be much more easy and stress free.

The process of making payment was quite standard like any other e payment so i did not had any issues there. The issue came when i had to give delivery address of my passport. Here i was not sure if i could give my home address because i was not willing to take risk . So i chose the option of personal collection.

Somehow the Pakistan Embassy Prague was not included in the list from where i could pick my passport, so i had to give Vienna, which is same distance as Prague but practically it is a different country.  So imagine, me Pakistani  applying online for renewal of passport from Czech Republic and than having it delivered to Vienna, Austria.  There is never a dull moment in a Pakistanis life, isn't it ? :)

After you are done with all those steps, here what you see.

I took this screen shot today and it is 2nd February. I have already got my new passport and apparently they have not updated the status of application. After i submitted the application, i received an email as confirmation of my application, and after 12 days i got another email saying that
Your e-Services Portal application with tracking ID: xxxxxxxx, has been accepted and sent for further necessary processing.

After this email, i did not received any more information either by email or by phone. I waited approximately one month and than i decided to contact NADRA. I sent them my inquiry via online contact form on their website, but i did not received any response on that. I also tried to call the phone number but not a single time i was able to connect. So i decided to call Pakistan Embassy Vienna, where i was suppose to receive my passport. When i called them they told me that they have received my passport and i can come and collect it.

I did not wanted to ask them over the phone, that why i was not informed when my passport was ready. So i went to the Embassy and after receiving my passport i asked them about not contacting me. The gentleman sitting there told me that we got no information related to this passport that we should contact someone, we received this passport among other passports. Well anyways, i got my passport with 10 year validity so now i can relax another 10 years :D .

I have to admit that it is a brilliant service from Govt. of Pakistan. Very few countries in the world offer the service of renewal of passport online. The website is very user friendly. However there are still some things which needs improvement. But i am sure with time they will improve also.

If you have gone through this whole story, i want to thank you also :) . Please share with me if you have experience with online renewal of passport also. Feel free to ask me questions, if you have any regarding this :)