There seems to be something very fishy going on with BLS and the Indian Government, at least in the Edmonton location.
I was there yesterday (Monday August 11th) for my OCI application. When I entered, I heard a lot of upset people having a discussion with the BLS staff. Turns out the upset individuals were those with passport appointments who had booked it 2 weeks in advance, to only show up and be told the Indian Govt. portal for passports is down today, and they were given appointments 2 weeks into the future (there were signs everywhere stating this). The BLS staff argued the passport portal has been down for the past 4-5 days and it's simply out of their hands as its the Indian Govt who shut it down. Thankfully, the OCI portal was up and running (whew).
So I got started with my OCI application, and when the staff were on the verge of uploading it and accepting payment from me, the OCI portal supposedly went down. I inquired what that means, and they told me oh they don't know, the Indian Govt submission portal crashes often, and to come in tomorrow (today) at 8am sharp and it should be working. I said I wouldn't be able to, but noon would work, and suddenly their tone changed and said oh ok, hopefully it is up by then. They recommended I leave the forms with them so that they can submit it when its back up, and then just accept payment from me later.
I show up at noon today, and they have signs everywhere saying the OCI portal is down (yesterday the signs said the Passport portal was down). I ask at the reception when its expected to be up, and he says oh its been down for 5-6 days now so to check back in 2 weeks. What???
I have no idea what is going on in BLS Edmonton. They are lying about whether the portals are up or down, or if there even is such a thing. I have a feeling that now when I go to make payment, they will add on extra charges and state well its already been submitted and we have no option now. Feeling so helpless here as we are all trying to follow the rules and be good ex-citizens, but the "system" makes it very tough to do so.
