KOCHI: The Centre on Wednesday informed the Kerala High Court the decision to merge the Malappuram regional passport office with the regional passport office at Kozhikode was a policy decision.
The Centre’s submission came in response to a petition by P K Kunhalikutty MP who sought a directive to the Centre on not to merge the Malappuram passport office with the office at Kozhikode. Kunhalikutty’s petition had said 20 lakh applications had been processed in the office, which would have brought in nothing less than `310 crore as fees.
The Centre said post the introduction of the Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) in Malappuram in 2013, all the applications were being processed thought there and the passport office was simply supporting the operations of PSK like printing and dispatching the passports. On rare occasions, ‘police adverse report’ cases are dealt by the passport office. After the proposed merger, PSK Malappuram will function to cater to the need of the district. The court adjourned the hearing of the case on Friday.