From April, passports to be quicker

From April, passports to be quicker
BENGALURU


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The services will come at a cost. The service providers will be allowed to levy an additional charge over and above the government fee.

Come April 1 and getting a passport will be a whole lot easier. Passport applications will be processed within three days of police verification and 68 ‘facilitation centres’ will be set up across the country, including two in Bengaluru, to help applicants. The first phase of ‘Passport Seva Project’ is sched uled to begin from April 1 in Bengaluru. The project aims to speed up police verification and processing of applications. “The Passport Seva Project will deliver passport-related services to citizens in a time-bound, transparent, accessible and reliable manner,” a senior officer said.
The project begins on pilot basis in Bengaluru and Chandigarh. It will start on April 1 in Bengaluru and sometime in June in Chandigarh.

“Two application centres will be in JP Nagar and HBR Layout on a trial basis. A final decision on where the centres will be located will be taken before April 1,” said an officer at the Regional Passport Office.

“We are training our officials and the three-day passport scheme will start on April 1,” confirmed regional passport officer G. Raveendran.

Once the scheme is implemented, getting a new passport or a duplicate passport will be done within three working days, while change in name or address will be effected on the same day that the application is filed.

However, the services will come at a cost. The service providers will be allowed to levy an additional charge over and above the government fee. The amount charged for this will be fixed soon, the officer explained.

The police department claimed that it has not yet been informed about the scheme and said it cannot speed up the verification process much more than it already had.

“We have not yet received any notification on this issue, but we have already speedened the verification process. From 15 days, we have come down to six. We can reduce it by one more day but not any further. Diligent verification is essential especially in light of the terror threat,” said police commissioner Shankar M. Bidari.

Under the project, passport offices will be linked with police stations to improve monitoring and reduce delays in police verification.

“We will be in constant touch with the police to speed up the verification process,” the RPO official said, adding that the government has also decided to outsource dispatch of passports to India Post.