Passport Seva portal down: Services across India disrupted as applicants face long delays
Passport Seva Portal
experienced widespread server issues on Thursday and Friday, disrupting operations at Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) across India. Multiple users in cities such as Delhi, Bhopal, and Thane took to X to report last-minute appointment cancellations and long delays.
Many people across major cities reported reaching PSKs only to find the centres non-functional. '@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.
— rathore_tweets (@rathore_tweets)
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"@passportsevamea Message received "Dear Applicant, your appointment for PSK/POPSK has been suspended due to Technical issue. Request you to reschedule appointment as per your convenience. -PassportSP". Is the passport office going to pay me a penalty for this instance?," X user Darshil said, expressing his frustration.
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— Darshil16061712 (@Darshil16061712)
X users also claimed there were no dates available for rescheduling in the next few weeks, instead the next available date being months later.
"Had an appointment for passport 2morrow morning for my kids and 2nd time in 2 months they asked to reschedule the appointment due to technical issues @passportsevamea. At 12.00 am we received the msg and they want people to stay here.. Their app too is not working," Mehul Kothari, an applicant, posted on X.
— MehulKothari3 (@MehulKothari3)
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Last minute cancellations also caused confusion and further distress for applicants with upcoming travel plans. Rahul Sharma, who had applied for his son's passport before a planned trip to the US next year, said, 'The last-minute cancellation of my passport appointment is putting our trip to the US next year in serious trouble. I had applied for my son's passport so we could all attend my daughter's graduation, but without it I can't even begin the visa process. With long US visa wait times, the delays make it very difficult to plan anything.'
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 ph call regarding this to 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.
— vidyaamp (@vidyaamp)
The repeated outages left applicants facing uncertainty, especially those with time-sensitive travel plans. Parents, business travellers, and others awaiting passports raised complaints about wasted time and mounting travel disruptions.
Despite the widespread outage, neither the
Ministry of External Affairs
nor the official @passportsevamea account on X has issued a public statement on the issue as of Friday morning.
This is not the first disruption of its kind. A similar server issue occurred in April, which forced PSKs across the country to suspend services for two days, triggering delays and last-minute cancellations.
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