TEAM HERALD
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: NRI Commissioner Dr Wilfred Mesquita Saturday blamed the delay in verifying antecedents of applicants by police, as the major hindrance in issuing passports in the State.
“Goa police always complain that they are busy with law and order. At their passport unit, either the official concerned is on leave or shifted elsewhere,” he said, addressing passport officers from other states at a seminar on Passport Verification System in the capital.
Mesquita while showering praises on Goa RPO for overcoming several hurdles, said problems of 90 percent passport seekers will be solved once this is sorted out.
Quoting a Union Government survey, he said Goa being a small state lags behind bigger states such as Delhi, Haryana and Punjab in issuing passport. He cited police’s chronic delay as the reason and assured the passport officials that he would urge the government to improve the efficiency of the police in this sector.
“At times the passport office returns the application to the police for re-verification because the report is incomplete. This consumes time. The worst thing is that a passport seeker and his/her witness are harassed as they are being called to the police station for verification. This process is wrong…Instead police should go on-field for verifying antecedents,” he said as he reeled off some problems plaguing the verification process.
The NRI commissioner said the RPO, which came under attack over delays in issuing passports in the past has witnessed a sea change. He attributed it to “uncooperative and adamant former passport officer (indirectly referring to now-transferred Kishan Kumar)” as one cause.
Chief Passport Officer Muktesh Pardeshi, who was also present during the address, said the average time for police verification should be 21 days.
“Once we get the report, we take 24 hours to complete the final process,” he said.
