In
a special briefing to TOI, Raghavendra Shastry, adviser to external
affairs minister S M Krishna,
gave details of fresh measures that are
expected to address the concerns raised by the people
- and reported by
this newspaper to help make the new passport application process
smoother and
transparent.The
ministry has also reviewed the online appointment process, and from
Friday,
an additional 30% slots are being released. This will take the
number of daily slots in the capital
from 1,650 to 2,050. Moreover,
appointments will now be given for up to 30 days instead
of 15.
"This way, we believe we will be able to process 6 lakh
applications in the country this year,
" said chief passport officer and
joint secretary in MEA Muktesh Kumar Pardeshi.
"We
have taken the suggestions given by TOI seriously and want people to
know that we are
working hard on them. There has been a huge backlog of
applications due to the holiday rush,
which is why we are having this passport mela. MEA is doing it for the
first time in the country.
This will help us smoothen the service in
about six weeks from now," said Shastry.
"We
will entertain walk-ins only on weekends. And people need not form
queues early in the morning.
They can come anytime after 10am," said
Basant K Gupta, additional secretary, consular passport & visa
division, MEA.
The
ministry has reiterated its promise of revisiting its website. "There
has been a lot of confusion over
the passport application website. The
older site, www.passport.gov.in is no longer functional but people
have
been visiting it. Therefore, we are going to redirect traffic from there
to our functional portal,
www.passportindia.gov.in. We are also going
to prepare a fresh list of documents required for applying
under various
categories. There will be no ambiguity in %the process anymore," Gupta
said.
Does
this mean that there will be no more surprise demands for additional
documents by PSKs?
"Yes. TCS staff will no longer decide what documents
are needed. Now, only government officials will
check if all documents
are in place and if anything else is required," said Gupta.
So
far, the applicants who were turned back by PSKs for lack of documents
had to try their luck again with
%the online appointment system to book a
slot. "This will not happen anymore. If there is any requirement
of a
document, an applicant will be given three days to return with the
papers," Pardeshi said.
To
ensure prompt delivery of passports, the postal department has been
roped in. "The postman will be given an incentive of Rs 50 per delivery.
He will call up or send an SMS before coming to ensure that the
passport is
delivered to the person to whom it is issued," said
Raghavendra Shastry,
advisor to minister of external affairs.
He
said that the system will be implemented across the country and S M
Krishna will personally
write to all state chief ministers to ensure
implementation of the revised rules.
Apart
from Delhi, passport melas will be held at the following places: RPO,
Koramangla, and PSKs at
Sai Arcade, Lalbagh, Mangalore and Hubli in
Bangalore; RPO and PSKs at Nelson Manickam Road,
Saligramam, and
Tambaram in Chennai; RPO and PSKs at Begumpet, Ameerpet, Toli Chowki,
Vijayawada,
Tirupati and Nizamabad in Hyderabad; RPO and PSKs in
Lucknow, Kanpur, Varanasi, and Gorakhpur; and
passport office at 14 Mall
Road in Amristar.
Source : The Times of India, June 22, 2012