Getting a passport will soon be easy with the government opening 'Passport Seva Kendras' (PSK) in 77 centres across the country in a year.
The first such PSK will be inaugurated in Bangalore on Friday followed by six others by June. One will be a pilot project for three months after which such kiosks will be opened all over the country.
Seven PSKs will run for next three months and the government plans to open all the 77 proposed PSKs by March 2011, A Manickam, Joint Secretary (Counsellor Passports and Visas of MEA), told reporters here.
Out of the 77 centres, three each will be in Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai while two will be in Kolkata.
The new system will ensure that an applicant gets the passport three days after his or her police verification is completed. This will ensure that long queues for filing applications for passports become a thing of past.
"After you enter a PSK for submitting your application, you will be out of it within 45 minutes," Manickam said.
"Once you are inside the PSK, a data operator will file your details and you are photographed. Your documents are checked in the second stage and forwarded to Granting Officer who will decide on whether your application can be accepted or not. This will not take more than 45 minutes," he said.
After the application is accepted, it will be forwarded to concerned district police headquarters for verification.
"The current police verification process is undergoing change. Now police cannot just say the applicant is not there.
They have to say where he is," Manickam said.
He said such kiosks will be of great help to applicants.
"The number of passports issued went up by 2.2 times from 1997 to 2007. This rapid growth is expected to accelerate further with India's fast growing global engagement," he said.
The future expected growth is around 18 per cent per annum with passport demand reaching over one crore by 2011.
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