VIJAYAWADA: Amid concerns that the Andhra Pradesh government is not issuing enough e-passes to those wanting to enter the state by road, Special Task Force officer MT Krishna Babu has said granting the requests of all who apply would put the government in a “difficult position”.
“The state gets between 14,000 and 20,000 applications every day for e-passes to arrive by road. It is not possible to give so many on a daily basis,” Krishna Babu told TNIE, adding that 6,000-7,000 people arrive on special trains and 1,300-1,500 on flights every day.
“We will be in a difficult position if we give e-passes to 15,000-20,000 more people to enter by road every day, as we have to make arrangements to quarantine and test them. It would almost be an unmanageable figure,” he asserted.
To cater to the demand, the government has now started issuing around 5,000 e-passes per day. “Since there is a lot of backlog and duplication, we decided to issue passes for fresh applications. Some people applied multiple times as their attempts were unsuccessful, so we are issuing over 4,000 passes per day to those who applied recently,” he added.
When asked about people being given ‘spot passes’ at the borders without applying on the Spandana portal, he said, “We don’t give such passes to anyone and everyone. We have given directions to register people who are given spot passes, and they are not granted except in case of an emergency.
This is verified through audio and video calls by officials at the border check posts.” Registration is done so the government has details of everyone who enters the state, he explained. “The work is more than double what we can manage in the given time. We need to take all precautions to save our time. People applying on the Spandana portal save our time on data entry, and we can use it for other important work. We are only encouraging and allowing people with e-passes unless there is an emergency,” he said.