Behind the Scenes of the Passport Seva Portal Shutdown: What Went Wrong?

The Passport Seva portal has become a hot topic on Google Search due to recent disruptions in its services. As announced on its official website, the portal’s operations were temporarily shut down for technical maintenance. In an advisory in August, it was informed users that the portal would be unavailable from 8:00 PM IST on August 29, 2024, until 6:00 AM IST on September 2, 2024.

This maintenance affected not only the citizens but also various authorities including MEA, RPO, BOI, ISP, DoP and police. Appointments scheduled for August 30, 2024 were to be rescheduled and applicants were to be informed.

Maintenance was completed ahead of schedule with services resuming on 1 September. The portal announced, “After successful completion of technical maintenance well before schedule, the Passport Seva portal and GPSP are now available for all citizens and concerned authorities.”

Many users took to social media to express their frustration over continued issues with the portal. Some reported that the site was still experiencing problems, even after the maintenance was supposedly completed.

One user complained, “Today is the fifth day, and the passport site is still down. It would be good to know how many more days it will take, so we don’t have to check every half hour,” alongside a screenshot showing an internal server error.

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Another user said, “It’s not working smoothly… Too much loading time and unauthorized logging out.”

Another user wrote, “Service is down even after the maintenance. TCS maintenance is so poor? Very irresponsible service for a passport-related site. How are we supposed to get our passports done?”