The Indian Consulates and government organizations in general are a pain to deal with. The processes are too slow and one never knows what is going on till the finished product comes out of the process.  I was pleasantly surprised with my experience with the SFO Indian Consulate over the past year. I had a baby boy last year and we wanted to visit India with him so I had to apply for a PIO (Persons of India Origin) card for him. I sent the forms and all the paperwork and the PIO card arrived in less thatn 2 weeks. The original timeline was much longer.

A couple of weeks ago, I had applied for a new passport for my wife and I decided to check ths status of the application. I had two options

•  Via Phone - Call between 2 and 4 everyday or
•  Via Email - status@cgisf.org.

I decided to send an email expecting a response in 3-4 days but was surprised to get a response in about 10 minutes. I thought it must be an auto-response. When I opened the email, all the details were listed. Kudos to the consulate for improving their services. I had a bad time when I went there personally a few years ago. Hopefully that aspect has also changed. Two Thumbs up for the SFO Indian Consulate. !!

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