Friday, April 12, 2013

One Day Service: Passport Renewal

My passport, which I obtained five years ago, is soon to be expired. Well, actually my company reminds me to renew it. My first reaction was panic mode!, first because the expiration date is very close and second, I got my passport in my hometown, Semarang. I was concerned about having to go back to Semarang just to renew it, when the procedure is three to four days. Using some "help" costs a fortune, double the normal rate is minimum. Also, I don't have all the documents needed here, i.e. my birth certificate. Luckily, my family card is brought by my brother here, I just had to collect it. From my research, we can substitute birth certificate with diploma or marriage book/license. Also, we can renew (also register or replace) our passport anywhere. Plus, there is online passport application. All we need is black and white/grayscale of all our documents to upload with our application (Citizen ID, Family Card, Birth Certificate/Diploma/Marriage License, Recommendation/Sponsor Letter, Old Passport).
Once I tried the online procedure and choose the day and the office to register/renew my passport, but when I got there, there is a bulletin about quotas for passport applications per day, and the quotas are always run out early, before the immigration office is officially open (applicants must queue to send the application), and online application is also limited, less than the regular ones. So  Then, I heard about "one day service", where we can renew our passport in one day, launched in February 2013. Right now, only two offices can serve one day passport renewal service, the western and the central of Jakarta. So, I tried to use the service, then I found out that the queueing process is more extreme. You must come much earlier than the time when the office gate is officially open, which is at 6.00 am, or even when the quota numbers are shared, which is at 07.30 am. By the third time I come to make the queue, which is at 04.30 am, one day after my passport expired, I finally got the queue number (150 from 200). Surprisingly, after the torturing process just to get into the queue, next processes are very smooth, as long as you complete the documents required. First, you must validate your old passport, if your passport passed, you can proceed to validate the other documents. After all the documents checked and validated, you proceed to get your "real" queue number from the machine in the office. Then you proceed to pay the cost, which is now set at 255 thousand IDR, and wait for the interview (along with fingerprints, signature recording, and photograph taking). I finished the procedure at 11.30 am, and be told to collect the new passport the next morning (if you get the earlier queue number, you might collect the passport in the afternoon at the same day). Not bad for waking up so early.

No comments:

Post a Comment