The Hindu : Simplified passport forms by year-end

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 27, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

Simplified passport forms by year-end

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD April 26. The External Affairs Ministry would be introducing new passport forms that will be of just two pages in about two months time making it easier for the applicant to fill in details and all passports in the country would be `written' by machines by the end of the year.

The new format passports are also to have better security features like bio-metrics, fingerprints, iris of the eye in tune with the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation, according to the Passport Consular Division Secretary of the External Affairs, J.C. Sharma.

Addressing a press conference here on Saturday after inaugurating the closed circuit television system, facilitation-cum-enquiry centre and the tele-appointments system at the regional passport office, he said there was a constant upgradation programme going on in the form of electronic transmission of forms and storage.

``Our effort is to make the system transparent, fast and efficient. We have decentralised the process of obtaining and receiving of application forms by opening cells at the district headquarters to decongest the main office here,'' he said.

The cells were opened in 300 of the 600 districts in the country with 16 districts connected in Andhra Pradesh. Such cells, however, were yet to start in the States of West Bengal and Karnataka. Application forms can be sent to the RPO electronically even while the verification process was on with appropriate security features embedded.

``Let the verifications be done at the district headquarters itself. The regional passport office would become a mere processing centre and for issuing `tatkal' passports,'' he explained. Passports are to be issued within 35 days or after 10 working days on the completion of police verification.

Mr. Sharma said States were being paid Rs. 200 per verification and last year Rs. 23 crores was disbursed as fee to all States. The Ministry had no plan or proposal to hike the passport fee from the current price of Rs. 1,000 and some vested interests were spreading rumours about the rise.

The PCD Secretary clarified that for the `tatkal' passports the signature of a deputy secretary of the Central Government or an equivalent rank was sufficient and it need not necessarily be that of an IAS/IPS official.

With regard to the issuance of passports to criminals and anti-social elements, Mr. Sharma said all the State Governments had been sensitised to the prevailing security environment of the country and there was better awareness now than before. He hoped that better coordination with police and efficient verification would curb such instances.

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