Trip Details:
Depart from Newark, NJ and arrive Hyderabad on 4th October via Heathrow
Depart from Hyderabad and arrive Newark, NJ on 24th October via Heathrow
OCI (Overseas Citizen of India) problems
Landed at new Rajiv Gandhi International Airport (1 year old), Hyderabad on October 4th as scheduled. Entire journey from Newark to Hyderabad (via Heathrow) went without a glitch. My problems started as soon as I faced an immigration officer.
I recently (few months ago) got OCI card. At the same time, Indian Consulate placed a stamp on my passport an OCI stamp (I will return to this in a moment).
As my US passport set to expire by October 31st, 2009 and my return journey is scheduled for 24th of October, I didn't want to take any chances and applied for new US passport and received it around 22nd of September. On my journey to India, I carried, new US passport and my OCI card (I completely forgot about the OCI stamp on my old passport, still valid off course).
The immigration officer at Hyderabad airport soon realized that I don't have the necessary OCI stamp on my US passport. He took us to a senior immigration officer and he mentioned that I will be given 2 weeks of temporary visa. If I wish to stay longer than that period of time I will have to produce the passport with the OCI stamp. My trip is for 3 weeks and I mentioned to him that I will be getting my old passport via courier. In actuality the officer listened to my wife and spoke to my wife in native tongue (Telugu), rather than to me. Even though I spoke in Telugu and English to him, but I took no offense of the matter.
The immigration officer sent us into a back office where they have staff working on resolving such matters. The officers working in that area was supposed to give me a Temporary visa, without fee. In the conversation, I understood that not long ago they have given such a visa to a lady in different circumstances. All they have to do is to open the letter they have prepared earlier, which they did readily, and edit it to my situation. This took them more than hour and half. Immediately I was reminded of what makes India, India, it's the abundance of people.
There are two computers in that room. One officer started working on my case. He opened the letter in the computer started editing the matter. One person was helping him out in filling the details in to the letter. There is another officer (so I gather), working on another computer, surrounded by 3 people, two on-lookers, one helper. I and my wife sat eagerly waiting on a sofa and chair cramped next to the two desks. We could gather from their conversations (in native language, Telugu), the difficulties they were having in doing their job. The officer knows how to edit word document, but doesn't know how to spell some of the words in English, therefore he relies on another person standing next to him (don't know his title). I could see the officers playing with grammar, font size, margins, god knows how long.
By now, you might have guessed, the officer who is working on my case doesn’t know how to type, therefore that adds more time and drama to my situation. All of a sudden the second officer came to my case officer's desk and started editing his document. I realized little later that the printer is hooked to only this computer; therefore he had to use this computer, which means delay in my case process.
Even though I don't believe in god, surely some super natural powers intervened (Note to theists, please take this as tongue-in-cheek comment). By this time all our fellow passengers took their baggage and cleared customs. The airport officers realized that our bags weren't cleared and they sent one of their employees to find out the matter. He soon appeared at the back office, and inquired about our matter. This seemed to have put some pressure and urgency in the officers who were working on my case. Soon, my case officer asked a senior officer nearby to look through my document and verify. He got on to my case and started taking his own sweet time.
I have to state something in support of the officers who are working in that area. Surely they have given tasks which they are poor at accomplishing. It was around 5am they started to work on my case, they probably didn't have much of sleep all night. I don't mind slowness, because of being tired. But, majority of the delay is because of sheer incompetency of the system. These officers shouldn't be hired to do this kind of job to begin with. You can get far more qualified people to do this job. However, due to either seniority or some type of bureaucracy Indian government placed such incompetent people do these jobs.
About 45 minutes after the airport management staff came to inquire about our situation, I got my temporary visa. As soon as we got out of the airport, we made overseas call and asked my parents to courier my passport. BTW... this is not the end of my passport story.....
