It's a breeze with KiPPas

KiPPas? No it's not a fan :-) KiPPas is the acronym for Kios Pembaharuan Pasport, aka passport renewal kiosk. KiPPas was first available in March 2006 at the immigration office in Pusat Bandar Damansara. With KiPPas, one can renew one's passport in just two hours.

I first learnt about KiPPas when looking for information on documents required for passport renewal, as my passport expires in a few days time, and I need a new one to apply for a Canadian visa. But the few websites that Google Malaysia returned on my search query wrote about the availability of KiPPas at the immigration office in Pusat Bandar Damansara. As none mentioned about the availability of KiPPas at the immigration office in Terminal 3 Subang where I was planning to visit, I was prepared to renew my passport the conventional way at the counter.

Anyway, as I was driving into the carpark of the immigration office in Terminal 3 yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to see the signage "KIPPAS" next to the main office. I made my way to the room and found a lone KiPPas machine, and an immigration officer next to it, assisting a gentleman with his application. The officer was so familiar with the machine and he instinctively knew which button to press at each stage of the application process. My guess is that an officer is stationed there to assist and expedite the process, so that there would not be any bottle neck resulting from people not being able to operate the machine, unlike at Pusat Bandar Damansara where everything is self-service. I was second in line and within a few minutes, my application was completed, and the machine generated a receipt with the instruction to return in two hours to collect my passport. Easy peasy - I think I probably spent less than 15 minutes, from the point of entering, till exiting the carpark.

Note: Even if you need to operate the machine yourself, it is extremely easy to navigate, with an option of using English or Malay. It’s like operating a cheque deposit machine, with detailed and precise instructions provided on the screen. For a more detailed guide on using the machine, see here and here.

I went home and got some housework done before returning to the immigration office, and made my way to Counter #13 to obtain a queue number for passport collection. Within five minutes, my number was called and voila, I've got my new passport. Now isn't it such a breeze to renew your passport with KiPPas?

Now I'd have given full marks to the Immigration Department for their much improved service level, until I noticed an omission in my passport - nothing to do with KiPPas, but rather human carelessness. I checked my new passport to ensure all details were correct. When one renews one's passport, the old passport details would be printed on the second last page but there was none on mine. I alerted the officer at the counter, and she promptly took my passport to rectify it. When she passed me back my passport some five minutes later, I was appalled to find the issuance date of my old passport was wrong. Again, I had to ask them to rectify it.

So that page now is disfigured like this, with the printed information at the top being voided, and the corrected details countersigned by an immigration officer, accompanied by the immigration stamp. Well, I sure hope no complications will arise when I travel in the future.




Anyway, I still think that the Immigration Department deserves a pat on their shoulder for their much improved service. I found this chart on the time taken for passport renewal in Malaysia since 1957 and the last few years have really seen much improvement.