New guidelines for address change in Indian passports

Dubai: Indian missions have issued new guidelines for change of address in passports, according to BLS International Services UAE, the outsourcing agency for Indian passport services.

Quoting instructions of the Indian consulate and embassy, the BLS website (www.blsindiavisa-uae.com) lists the documents and procedures needed for various kinds of address change applications.

The guidelines came into effect between November 4 and 9, according to the list of requirements on the website.

The address change requests can be for changing the existing address details to match those of the applicant’s parents’ address in India or in the UAE. Requirements for parents wishing to change the address details of their minor children are also listed.

In general, the documents required are a letter or no objection certificate from the parents, the parents’ passport copies showing their address, and a sworn affidavit from IVS Global, which has been appointed by the Indian embassy in Abu Dhabi to carry out attestation services in the UAE. It has offices in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.

According to a BLS representative contacted at its Dubai office number (04 255 5530), the standard charges for adult passport address change applicants is Dh337 and Dh242 for minors.

A new passport booklet is issued carrying the new address, she added, saying the time taken to receive the passport with the changed address is in accordance with the new processing time for Indian passport applications announced by the consulate in October.

Under the new processing times, a Dubai-issued passport now takes a minimum of 15 working days (instead of seven) while a passport issued anywhere else takes a minimum of 60 days (instead of 40)

The delays are temporary until a technical issue is resolved, an Indian consulate official was earlier quoted as saying.

The consulate this week also carried a public advisory on its website (www.cgidubai.com), urging Indian nationals with handwritten passports to apply for urgent re-issuance of their passports.

“The International Civil Aviation Organisation has set a deadline of 24th November, 2015 for globally phasing out of all non-Machine Readable Passports (MRPs). From 25th November, 2015 onwards, foreign governments may deny visa or entry to any person travelling on a non-Machine Readable Passport,” the advisory said.