Passport office to turn user-friendly

Passport office to turn user-friendly
The Times of India

BANGALORE: The Bangalore passport office is all set for a make-over with a host of people-friendly measures. The aim is to make it a zero-pendency centre.

Regional passport officer P. Kumaran, who took over recently, said arrangements are being made at the 16 'Bangalore One'centres to facilitate submission of passport application forms. Further, the passport office is holding discussions to sort out technical requirements to process the forms. The facility will be operational within two months.

The ministry of external affairs will pay Rs 100 to 'Bangalore One'for every passport application that is processed which includes accepting the application form, scanning pictures, signatures and sending the form to the passport office.

Passport camps will be organised in major companies in Bangalore to facilitate easy process of applications.

"Philips Software has come forward with a request to conduct a camp at their campus and we are doing it by this month end.""They have promised to install certain facilities at our offices,"he said.

A new token system has been introduced wherein applicants can come to the office at 9 am, take a token for appointment to submit the form, go for other work and come back to the office at the time of appointment to submit the form. "We want to improve the mood of the applicants who come to the office and not make them wait in long queues,"he revealed.

Currently, the passport office receives nearly 1,100 application forms everyday through direct submissions, speed posts, district passport cells and passport application collection centres. The passport office aims to encourage the 40 odd speedpost units in Karnataka to accept the forms and process the documents before sending it to the passport office.

Another innovation is that a superintendent will sit behind every counter clerk and will - after verifying all documents - give direct conditional approval. This would mean that any future objections would be eliminated and thus save time for the applicant.

Only a police verification will then be necessary. The passport office will also outsource several works like scanning of photographs, signatures, data entry, and passport printing. This should be done by next month. "We have a dynamic monitoring mechanism for pending applications and we want to sort them out quickly,"he explains.

Currently, it takes 51 days from the date of application to issue a passport. But the endeavour is to reduce the time to 30-35 days. "We are shortstaffed,” he added.

Kumaran can be contacted on e-mail: rpobng@eth.net .