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Awesome Service by Indian consulate and CKGS. I needed to renew my passport in short notice. The CKGS website clearly guided me through the application process. I had to correct a minor error on the application. The customer service (first 5 minutes free) was very knowledgeable and helped me to cancel my application and re-submit. Turn around was 8 days from the day I submitted my application. They had periodic sms/email updates about the status of the application.
M. Viswanathan ;
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Thank you for extraordinary service. I applied for my passport renewal and my daughter’s renewal. It was extremely easy to do the process. I was getting real time update and very prompt process. It’s really a fantastic process and I totally appreciate well.
E. Narasimhan ;
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My this 5 Star review is for new CKGS Indian Passport office at 336 West 37th Street, Suite 500 New York, NY 10018. I have never seen an Indian office so well organized in my life. The staff is so professional & well qualified in this new office for Indian passport. The girl at the front desk is the so well educated & best qualified for that job. "God Bless Her". The atmosphere of this office is highly comfortable for clients. Thank you to Indian Consul General for changing the whole experience of dealing with Indian staff in USA.
Omesh S. ;
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Writing this review makes me angry and happy; which is quite an achievement by the way. Angry because : Thankfully I haven't had the opportunity to get my passport renewed via BLS. Going by blogposts and grievances on immigration forums bls was a Kafkaesque experience. But again it is not so simple this time around too. You see the Indian Consulate outsourced passport processing to Cox and Kings effective May 9,2016. And how does someone find out about this change in vendors? By navigating to an obscure page here : indiacgny.org/pages.php?… and many times I find the indiacgny website is down..like how is that even possible or acceptable ? And if you google cox & kings Indian passport renewal you will be hard pressed to find the passport renewal page which is this : passport.in.ckgs.us.Because you are always taken to the main landing page in.ckgs.us which does not mention anything about passport renewal..like they're hiding it as if some precious secret. The address for the passport processing office is different than the one listed on this yelp profile. Passport processing is done here : Building : 336 West, 5th Floor on West 37th Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues (more closer to 9th avenue than 8th) Be warned the Building or the elevator does not have any directory listing but you will find a lot of desi peeps hovering about, just follow the crowd. The Happy part : I have a 10 year passport that is set to expire in the next 8 months and so as not to impede my travel plans I decided to get it renewed. The website passport.in.ckgs.us is very intuitive. Follow the instructions to a tee... do not go directly to the Government of India Online NRI Passport website; wait for the CKGS Passport website to direct you to it. (This is very important!) I had a few questions and contacted the call center and was pleasantly surprised by how knowledgeable and communicative the staff were. Once I finished the online application + gathered the required documents, I decided to do a walk-in drop off rather than mail it in. The office was nice and clean. You pick a number and take a seat. Do not take out your cellphones (or you'll be yelled at by the kind lady behind the central counter) While waiting for my turn I noticed that the staff was mainly made up of young millennial? workers. I heard a smattering of different desi languages when they were trying to help applicants...this made me very happy. The employees were polite,courteous, well informed and almost everyone left happy and satisfied except for the one sourpuss who got repeatedly told off when he tried sneaking out his cellphone..dude you can leave the room to tinder. When my turn came the whole handing over papers getting acknowledgments, lasted all of 10 minutes and I was on my way out. This is the smoothest bureaucratic interaction I've ever had in the USA or in India for that matter. After reading this wall of text you still are like mehhh...go now before the staff gets jaded like typical New Yorkers' and stonewalls your every query or request :) Thank You, An initially irritated but now satisfied customer.
V. Sid ;
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I applied to renew my passport through their online application system and I had a good experience. Their checklist walks you through all the required documents and which among them need to be notarized which was very useful.
Once you ship your documents to them you can track it online and they also provide text updates. Overall I got my new passport in less than 10 days which is really good for standard service.
Time line -
28 may - completed and submitted documents by usps priority mail
29 may - received confirmation that they'd received it and that my documents were processed
1 Jun - documents sent to indian embassy
7 Jun - tracker showed that passport had been sent back from embassy. My only gripe was that it didn't mention if it was the old or new passport.
8 Jun - received both old and new passports via FedEx.
Follow the instructions clearly and it's a smooth experience.
K. Ashwath ;
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I had an outstanding experience with CKGS-NY! Facing a medical emergency requiring my mom to travel back to india ASAP, but handicapped with an expired passport, CKGS personnel guided me in a step-by-step, methodical fashion in navigating the emergency and obtaining a full passport renewal in the shortest period of time ever.
JT ;
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I had an appointment at 13:00 and I reached at 12:30ish. Greeted at the reception, the lady checked all my documents and gave me a token. My number was called out (I didn't have to wait at all, there were around 5-6 applicants at the center) and gave the agent my documents. She checked the documents again; I did the payment, was all set and ready to go. I couldn't believe it was done at this pace, I literally asked her 4 times whether I was good to go. The entire process took around 15 minutes and I was done before my actual appointment time. Every employee was polite and friendly. I received my passport in a week. *sigh* *sigh* *sigh*(It was a standard application, NOT tatkal) Cheers to CKGS and the Indian Embassy!
Shalin S. ;
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Staff was really nice and helpful and had a good knowledge of the process flows which made the application process easier
S. P. Raikar ;
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Simply Awesome Services, Thank You CKGS!!
A. bazaru ;
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Good services, As expected.
P. Jha ;
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Extremely satisfied in all aspects
B. Vora ;
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Service was too fast, we have no even stayed in the service counter for even 5 minutes, our job was done in 3 minutes and we eventually got our receipt.
Senthil ;
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Service was excellent, with courteous and helpful representatives
Maurali ;
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Staff is very co-operative.
H. Sharma ;
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NY office is great place. Staff is so helpful & knowledgeable.
V. Sameer ;
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Service has been extremely quick, staff is very courteous.
R. Pandey ;
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My passport service was quick and efficient. CKGS staff is amazing.
Krupaben ;
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CKGS staff was really efficient, quick friendly. Helped in submission was very through. Thanks
Mrs. Arora ;
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CKGS staff was super helpful. I came in 2014 when BLS was doing this service and compared to that CKGS service is like aeroplane to a passenger train on a meter gauge!!!
G. Pathak ;
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Extremely quick process courteous staff.
H. Nasir ;
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CKGS has good service and extremely quick. Really helpful for people outside their home country - India.
Srijan ;
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Great work!
P. Sharma ;
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I came to submit my son's passport and it was awesome the representative assisted me very fast and I did the submission process within less than 5 minutes.
S. Jacob ;
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Much better experience than imagined.
H. Patel ;
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CKGS India passport service in NYC was seamless. Night and day vs the previous firm.
E. Poonawala ;
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Much better experience than BLS, very efficient and organized. Great customer experience.
Satya ;
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Each & Everything is very good & Satisfied.
A. B. Mohan ;
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Great Job !!
Shrikant ;
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Knowledgeable, Courteous, and friendly staff.
S Sood ;
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Good customer service.
Gopal ;
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Staff was courteous and helpful.
M Bharti ;
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Nice and smooth experience was done quickly with walk-in.
P Kumar ;