The Fastest Passport in the World?

No I am not referring to the passport of our Prime Minister that probably qualifies for the most Frequent Flyer Miles among world leaders.

I had to renew my passport in Johor Bahru as the passport is used at least once a week when I accompany my wife back to Singapore.

I drove into the TJB car-park and as I about to cross the road to Wisma Perseketuan, I realised that I had left my Mykad in the copier machine at home. So I returned home to retrieve that, though I did think of doing the application another day.

As I left the car park within the grace period, there was no fee. Thank God for small mercies!
I returned with all the documents and went to the queue counter where the guy told me to go to the special room as I qualified under the Oldies category that includes anyone above 55 years.

There was this special room on the ground floor where those were were aged, handicapped or with small children were handled. There were only 3 or 4 others in the room and the service was really fast.

It took about 40 minutes altogether to get a new passport. SYABAS to the Immigration Department of Johor Bahru for a WORLD CLASS SERVICE!
I left the car park 48 minutes from the time I entered.

Just a few observations to consider:
Since the Mykad is presented for such quick processing there should be no necessity for a photo-copy. We can reduce paper wastage.
A small dust-bin would be useful near the processing area for the public to dispose of tissue used to wipe finger after thumb-printing.
Page 31 is used for the chop stating the details of the old passport. Now if page 32 or Page 3 is used instead, the usage of the passport can be slighly lengthed. Some immigration officers are quite fussy and tell me that Page 31 cannot be used as it has that notice.
The receipt collection area is raised 2 or 3 steps so a handicapped person cannot access and the staff will have to come down.

All-in it was a very pleasant experience. Now if we can transfer the good practices of the Immigration Department to other offices, we can enjoy a world class civil service.