Abu Dhabi: The Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi has cancelled the bidding process to select a new agency for handling Indian passport and visa applications in the UAE, a senior diplomat told Gulf News on Sunday.
“We had a tender process which we had to cancel because of some procedural difficulties,” said Neeta Bhushan, Charge d’Affaires at the Indian Embassy in Abu Dhabi.
The existing service provider’s (BLS International) three-year term ended last year and the embassy extended it until the end of August 2016 because of the delays in the bidding process. Bhushan said the embassy has further extended the BLS’s term until January 2017.
She said these developments would not affect the passport and visa services at all. The services will continue uninterrupted, Bushan said.
“We will soon start the new bidding process,” the diplomat said.
A committee constituted by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and headed by Bhushan is in charge of the bidding process. A senior official of the Ministry, the Consul General of India in Dubai and other officials from the embassy and the consulate are members of the committee, which will select the new service provider on consensus, Bhushan said.
As Gulf News reported in June, the Indian diplomatic missions in the UAE started renewing all passports within five working days. Earlier, passports issued by a different Indian passport authority in the UAE or outside were renewed in 40 working days. It was even applicable to Abu Dhabi residents whose passports were issued from Dubai and vice versa.
If applicants fulfilled all legal requirements, all passports were renewed within five working days from the beginning of June. This was applicable to passports issued by all other Indian passport authorities in India and abroad, including the Indian Consulate in Dubai.
The embassy officials had said delays in passport renewal of certain individual cases could be related to police verification in India. There is no mandatory police verification for passport renewal. However, if the police verification report during the issuance of the first passport was not perfect [lacking proper address or any other details], an adverse remark would be there with the applicant’s file on the passport system. If a person is wanted by the police or court in India in a criminal case, this will also reflect on the system. Such passport holders are classified as “Prior Approval Category” (PAC) and the diplomatic missions are not authorised to renew their passports unless such adverse remarks are cleared, they said.
