TEAM HERALD
NEW DELHI: No more endless wait for police verification you have to undergo before your application for passport is taken up for consideration, thanks to the passport division of the external affairs ministry adopting technology to whittle down the delays.
Police took on an average 40 days to verify a passport applicant in 2014 which is already an improvement over 51 days in 2013, but it may soon take less than a week on an average under a new manual being readied by the passport office.
Police can no longer claim the applicant was not at home when its personnel went for verifying as under the new system, the applicant can fix up the date and time for verification instead of being at the mercy of the cop.
The applicant will receive a computer-generated text message (SMS) with details, including the mobile number of the policeman handling his verification, the moment his computerised application reaches the office of the superintendent of police or police commissioner. He can schedule visits by the cop that is mutually convenient.
The applicant will get the alert to pursue the verification as he can directly dial the concerned policeman and fix a time for his visit — avoiding the familiar story of the police officers claiming that they found nobody when they visited the address given in the application.
The police officer who carries out the verification will be able to feed clearance on the spot from a tablet after interviewing the applicant instead of the present practice of going back to the police station and file the report only after getting free from various other duties. Every police officer assigned for verification of the passport applicants will be provided these tablets by the passport office.
India’s Chief Passport Officer Muktesh Pardeshi says the idea for shortening the time taken in police verification came from the passport office in Secunderabad where police is armed with the tablets to update the status of the applicants on the move. He said every regional passport office chief has also been advised to create a Twitter account to entertain complaints in real time. Their Twitter accounts will be monitored by Ramachandran Swaminathan, a special secretary in the foreign office incharge of the consular, passport and visa related issues.
