The new illiterates.

Passports in India have gone biometric which means fingerprints and retinal scans of everyone to be taken. In previous years you filled up a form, stood for hours to pay the fees and then stood again for hours to submit the form with the receipt of the fees. At least there was no confusion. Lots of touts used to hang around outside offering to fill your form and submit it on your behalf for Rs 100 but educated people like us just ignored them. Now, however, even we cannot submit passport forms without help. You have to download the form using Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 or above, fill it and then upload the form in XML format but not in PDF. Once that is accepted you will be shown available dates and can choose a suitable one. You will then download the information, print it out and present yourself at the correct passport office 15 minutes before the appointed time with appropriate documents. Since 90% of Indians do not possess a computer and 50% do not know enough English this is impossible but, even for us so called educated people this sounds like gibberish. Every school has computer classes so children as young as 5 are familiar with these infernal machines but for older people computers are incomprehensible. Trouble is that if you ask anyone the response you get is that it is very easy. Excuse me. A porter, totally illiterate, at a hospital can stitch an open wound, draw blood and set up an IV line, he finds it easy. Can you? A lady is fluent in written and spoken in Fulani, she finds it easy. Can you? It is stupid and infuriating. Sure enough touts have set up business. Only now they are sitting in offices and charging Rs 500 for filling up your form and getting you an appointment. Yet it could be made much easier. For instance there is no need to do anything to this blog. Just click on the " publish " icon at the top of the page and it is instantly published. The same could be done with the passport form but, this being India, it has to be made so complicated that it becomes impossible. Just to harass people. Anyway, we recently obtained Adhaar cards, which have photographs, prints of all 10 fingers and retinal scans and were supposed to do away with every form of identity problem. Why can they not get all the biometric details from the Adhaar fellows which will save them and us a colossal amount of time and grief. All it would need would be to print out a form, fill it, give your Adhaar number, attach relevant documents and submit it at a post office with the fees. Simple. However, knowing our civil servants they would probably print your daughters details on your passport and you would running around forever to get it rectified. Recently they had to sort out the Railway Tatkal ticketing system to get rid of touts. Now the touts have shifted to passports. Do they do it on purpose?