Team Herald
MARGAO: Around 50 Goans whose applications for Portuguese citizenship have been pending for over a year met the Town and Country Planning Minister Vijai Sardesai seeking his mediation on the issue.
Vijai called up Chief Minister and informed him about the hardships faced by the people and assured the people that he would discuss the matter with the chief minister and find a solution to their problem.
Peter Carvalho of Goa Travels, who is handling the applications for Portuguese nationality said, “For more than a year no progress has been made on the applications primarily because the State administration is not verifying the birth certificates sent by the Portuguese authorities to Goa. Once an application is made to the Consulate in Goa it is sent to Lisbon from where the Portuguese authorities send back the document be it – birth, death or marriage certificate to the State administration for verification.”
“The verification used to be done by the Civil cum Sub Registrar who had issued the certificate in the first place and he has not been verifying the same,” said Peter.
Incidentally, vide a letter dated June 2, 2017, addressed to the State Registrar cum Head of Notary Services, Under Secretary Establishment pointed out that this issue was referred to the Home Department which gave its opinion vide a letter dated May 17, 2017 which is as under: “The Civil Registrar Offices should not directly entertain request from the Portuguese Consulate for verification of Birth/Death and Marriage records and instead the request for verification of Births/Death and marriage Certificate should be routed through Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi…”
Subsequent to this letter, the State Registrar vide a letter dated June 12, 2017 addressed to all Civil cum Sub Registrars advised them to channelise all applications of Portuguese Consulate to his office for onward submission to the Law Department.
Further, the registrars were advised that in cases where verification was done, the Consulate be informed about the change in process for verification.
