Originally Posted by Keyser

so here is a bit of disturbing info i received from a friend of mine who is a senior ranking official in the external affairs ministry....i was having dinner with him last night & we were discussing the global entry program among other things....

he said the procedure is pretty complicated & works something like this:

the first step is the interview at the passport seva office where they will upload the passport details & bio metrics & photograph....once this is complete they will initiate police verification....

the second step is the police verification whereby someone from the police will visit your home to verify certain details....once this is complete they will send their report back to the passport office....this completes phase 1 of the process....

the third step is the passport office sending their phase 1 report to the finance ministry & external affairs ministry....

the fourth step is the finance ministry forwarding the report to the ed (enforcement directorate) so that they can verify your details & check if there are no economic crimes pending against you....at the same time the external affairs ministry shall forward the report to the ib (intelligence bureau), cbi (central bureau of investigation) & raw (research and analysis wing) to check if there are any criminal proceedings pending against you....once clearances from all these agencies is received then the individual reports will be sent back to the passport seva office....this will complete phase 2 of the process....

the fifth step is the passport seva office sending a consolidated report back to the cbp letting them know whether or not they recommend the individual for entry into the global entry program....

according to my friend this whole process can take anywhere from a couple of months to a year before the report goes to the cbp....at this point he expects the average wait time to be about 6 months....as of now the external affairs ministry & the finance ministry are not even sending the phase 1 reports to the respective agencies as & when they receive them....they wait till the end of the month & then send all the reports in one go....this wastes more time....

i have no reason to not believe my friend since he is involved with this process....he admits that the process is extremely frustrating & was not thought through when it was implemented but this is the way they have decided to do things so we have no option but to wait....