Jawazat opens special counter in Rehab district for Indian passports

The Passport Department (Jawazat) in Jeddah has opened a special counter at its office in the Rehab District to accept newly designed passports of Indian nationals. The move follows heavy rush at the Passport Department's main office in Kandara.
According to a Passport Department official, the “nakal malumat,” or the transfer of visa information on the newly designed Indian passports, will not be done at the main office to avoid overcrowding.
The earlier rejection of the new Indian passports by the Passport Department has led to a huge backlog.
The Passport Department began accepting the new passports only Tuesday. The Indian diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia have been issuing the new passports since the first week of May.
Saudi passport authorities in Jeddah earlier did not accept the newly introduced passports and said they hadn’t received any official information regarding the change.
Thousands of Indian expatriates planning to go on vacation were left stranded due to nonacceptance by Saudi authorities. The Indian Embassy in Riyadh took up the issue with the Saudi authorities to validate the passports.
All existing passports will be replaced by the new version upon their expiry. The new Indian passport has additional security features, a reduced number of pages and the repositioning of some of the pages.
It has a watermark image similar to Mahatma Gandhi’s watermarked image on 500-rupee notes. The passport holder’s personal details have moved from the back cover to page two in the new passport. Other details of the passport holder have been shifted from the first page to page 35.
Along with the watermark image, the personal details of the passport holder is embedded in the passport to reduce tampering.
The signature and seal of the passport issuing authority, which had been on the first page, will now be on the overleaf of the front cover. Double lamination is a new security feature in the passport, which will prevent the ink on the pages from disappearing.
The new changes in the passport have been introduced after several instances of misuse and duplication of passports in various countries including Saudi Arabia.