Lisa Ann Monteiro
teamherald@herald-goa.com
PANJIM: A total of 7896 passport applications are pending for want of police clearances or awaiting police reports, passport authorities said with most applications being received this year.
According to procedure, once the passport office sends the applications to the Special Branch, the Special Branch in turn sends it to the local police station, local CID and the crime branch. However, there is a bit of a blame game going on with the police arguing that the clearance on their part can be done in a day and the delay happening at the Special Branch.
The Passport Officer Agnelo Fernandes also says that the around 40 no shows a day that were a norm in the past have stopped with the new system of having to pay prior to booking an appointment. He also said that today the main problem is the delay in clearance by police.
Officials at the Special branch say it is a perennial problem of shortage of staff that leaves applications pending for so long.
“Police and CID reports come quickly. Clearances from the Crime Branch take time as they are overburdened with applications from the whole of Goa. At the Special branch we receive 3000 applications each month and we clear 4000 include backlog. In the past three weeks we cleared 3000. But last week due to shortage of staff we managed to clear only 500 applications. Some of the staff is on leave while others have gone to attend the refresher course in Valpoi,” an officer at the Special Branch spoke on anonymity.
It is this shortage of staff that the police officers are left with little time to clear passports that make them resort to calling the applicants to the police station for verification instead of them physically verifying their addresses.
“As long as they are locals we don’t usually visit the person’s house. If they have migrated to Goa then we are a little more careful. Usually if all the documents with address proof are in place we don’t bother to visit their houses. Only if a person has a criminal record do we go and physically verify their addresses. Applicants provide their mobile numbers on the passport application and the police tell them to come to the police station late in the evening or whenever they can. They can come according to their convenience, even late in the evening so that they don’t have to miss work on that day,” one officer said.
Another officer at the Special Branch also informed that the police send their beat staff secretly to verify the addresses of applicants.
