Several hundreds of Indian expatriates are facing problems with newly issued passports by Indian diplomatic missions in Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities are not accepting the newly designed passport, saying they have not received any official information on modification.
Passport holders are legal residents of the Kingdom with valid residency permits who have approached Passport Department (Jawazat) to transfer data from their old passports to their new ones, commonly known as “naql maalumat.”
In the old passport, the passport holder's photo was placed on the second page, whereas the newly issued passports have photos placed on the third page.
Indian expatriates have approached the Indian Consulate and have obtained a letter confirming the validity of the new passport, but Saudi officials are insisting on receiving confirmation of these changes through the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Yesterday, the Saudi passport office in Jeddah refused to update approximately 200 Indian passports for this reason. Expatriates rushed to the consular service's outsourcing agency and have lodged a formal complaint.
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