In India, not too long ago, the crowds used to form at dawn outside the Canadian High Commission on Shantipath Road in New Delhi’s Chanakyapuri district.

Thousands would travel vast distances and set up makeshift tents within the walls to wait for an audience with a bureaucrat to obtain a visa and deal with immigration issues.

Portable toilets had to be brought in; ambulances would be rushing in and out ferrying those the sun had flayed while police patience often broke with a swing of the cane.

Today the crowds and the line-ups are no more, thanks to sheer determination by some Canadian government officials to solve this problem.

We solved the problem in India.

But it seems we can’t do diddly when it comes to solving the similar chaos that has besieged our passport offices in Canada.

Every business day for the last five months, young and old, fit and frail have been waiting in line from dawn hoping to get a piece of paper to prove they are Canadians.

The line-ups across the country are reminiscent of the chaos in India and one that you may expect to see in a third world country.

At the Sinclair Centre in downtown Vancouver, the queue that goes around the block and snakes up and down the stairs of the fancy mall is a daily denunciation of our Federal government’s incompetence to manage passport services.

Queries to officials are met with nonchalant replies while Ottawa has met the howls of outrage with a stony silence or the “we are doing everything we can” line.

It makes you wonder just how much our elected officials care about the needs of the common folk.

This debacle has its roots in a ruling that came into effect Jan. 23 that states anyone travelling to the U.S. by air will need to have a valid passport.

While many can only blame themselves for the last minute rush, Ottawa is largely responsible for this mess.

There is no evidence to show that it had moved effectively to prevent this predictable chaos.

For instance, it could have opened temporary offices to alleviate the crush.

Instead the disaster was left to unfold and disrupt the lives of thousands.

Our passport mandarins predicted a 6.6 percent increase in applications. The reality is more than double that amount and in some cases applications have jumped up by as much as 33 per cent over normal levels.

If this was a private enterprise, it would have been driven to bankruptcy with this type of service and management.

“We have the budget and we have the manpower, but we don’t have the infrastructure such as customer booths,” admitted Fabien Lengelle of Passport Canada.

Tell us something we don’t know.

Even the options of applying for passports by mail to avoid the long lineups don’t work.

While Passport Canada promises processing will take 20 business days, applicants are waiting more than 10 weeks to get their passports.

If you think today’s frustration will ease, just wait five years until your passport expires.

The Consumers’ Association of Canada has called on the government to do whatever it takes to restore the rights of Canadian consumers to obtain a passport within a reasonable time.

It is suggesting that the life of a Canadian passport be extended from five years to 10 like that of the Americans and Australians.

We support that call.

Canadians should not be spending huge amounts of time in line-ups and on the phone to prove their citizenship.