Passport (M’sia) Renewal Within 1 hour!
Remember those time when we used to wait for hours to get our passport renewed? Having to wake up early in the morning to take a LRT train to the nearest Immigration building in the city located at a walking distance near the DAMAI Putra LRT station. By reaching there around 8 something in the morning, you can see queues already lining up even though the office has not opened yet. I chose the KL branch immigration to the terminal 3 station then because of the convenience of public transport. The queue then was terrible and before you take a number, you have to be pretty darn sure your document is complete and adequate. Otherwise, there goes your long wait in the queue for the numbers. Thus, those days i rather spend an amount of Rm10 for a service provided by those “smart biz doer” near the immigration office there to snap photos, photocopy, fill in, and developed it. To play safe and would not get rejected after queuing for so long because of a minor mistake of the way the Identity Cards is photocopied.
After taken the number, the long waiting part starts here. You have to wait to hand in those documents and wait to pay for the passport. This process may always take up hours of waiting. If the amount of people is average, you may be lucky to finish the process before lunch hour. If not, you have to come back after lunch and continue waiting. The new passport can only be collected the following day if i am not mistaken. But the worst part is, you have to queue to take a new number and wait for the number to collect the passport. And there goes our precious two morning or 1 and half day….
I’m surprised that the great transformation from last time, it only took an hour for the renewal of passport at Sri Rampai Immigration Department(Bussiness Centre Area). Even the collection of the passport is done within the hour. Of course, it is not done at the peak season but it shows that at least “this make some sense”. For those who want to renew passport, my advice is as follow:
1) Pay Rm1 for the form for renewal at the counter.
2)Bring Your Identity Card (need to be photocopied)-services provided by some shop near there.
3) Of course your old passport
4) Passport photos (again taken at the shop near there to play safe)
5)Cash depending on the pages you want to renew (normal-RM300)
6) Bring the completed form to the counter to take a number.
7)wait for number to be called
8)first wait for call to hand in forms & documents
9)second wait for call to pay the passport fees
10) third wait for collection of new passport.
11) Done!
What a huge different from before, and i wonder why that it can be done now but not way back that then. Here is the Malaysia immigration department website to refer on.
