HYDERABAD: IN a major relief for passport applicants, MEA has recently issued a notification asking police to restrict background checks to criminal antecedents and not stress on the variation between current address and permanent address. Currently, a lot of applications get declined after verification due to discrepancies in applicants’ address of stay.
“We are not saying Physical verification of address is not required. We are leaving it to discretion of Police department. If there are doubts on nationality, refugee status, or other such doubts, they can verify address. We are concerned only about antecedents of applicants,” Regional Passport Officer of Hyderabad Vishnu Vardhan Reddy said while addressing a press conference on Wednesday.
He also said that if a person is a native of, say, Hyderabad but lives in Bengaluru, he should apply for a passport in Bengaluru and not in Hyderabad.
He can do so using address proof like a rental agreement or other documents.
The Hyderabad’s Regional Passport Office and Telangana Police department have won an award each for passport delivery services and police verification.
The award will be presented by Sushma Swaraj on June 26. While the average time taken to verify details of passport applicants in other States is around 21 days, it’s a mere 4 days in Telangana.” “The numbers have bettered from the 5 days time taken earlier. The Regional Passport Office won first place under Category -A offices which issue more than five-lakh passports annually. Hyderabad issues 1.1 crore.
Soon, regardless of whether a person applies for Passport at Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) or
Regional Passport Office in Hyderabad, the time taken to deliver the document would be the same as measures are being taken to shift operations at POPSKs from Camp mode to PSP mode.
“Though applications are processed at POPSKs, the applications are sent through post to the Regional Passport Office in Hyderabad where details are entered and Passport is issued after getting grant from here. This is called Camp Mode. However, the operations at POPSKs will be converted into Passport Seva Project (PSP) mode,” said Reddy.
At least 12 cases of fake passports reported per month
Hyderabad’s Regional Passport Office receives at least 12 cases of people holding two original and valid passports or fake passports each month. “If police clearly states that the person has criminal intentions, we immediately suspend the passports and issue show-cause notice. Earlier, we used to take action at RPO level. However, without stopping at it, if we know there is a clear mala fide intention, we request police to take appropriate action,” Reddy added.