Make ur passport before March 31st, if it's going to expire soon. Hand-written passports made before March 31st are valid until the year 2015. If they don't issue MRP (Machine Readable Passport) in time, and ur passport expires, u won't be able to travel abroad... since passports (hand-written) issued after April 1 is not going to be recognized in airports for travel. Even they launch MRP, it takes atleast 8-10 weeks before you get the passport. There is no certainty that MRP is going to be launched anytime soon... cross ur fingers, if u wanna take a chance! Good Luck!!