Soon,suvidha at Sampark Kendras to fill passport forms

Sources said that the Regional Passport Officer,who falls under the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has decided that soon one could apply for an online passport at the Sampark Centres in Chandigarh and Suvidha Kendras at the Deputy Commissioner’s offices in Punjab and Sanjh Kendras under Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) office in Punjab.

As talks in this regard are already on between concerned governments and RPO to work out the modalities.

The MEA had issued directions to RPOs across the country with online filling of passport forms to authorise a few people including ex-servicemen to fill these forms to facilitate the public.

“But these orders of the ministry have not been implemented. The reason is that the officials of the RPO felt that the few authorised people will work as touts and charge more and also start their own agencies after a few months. But at these centres,there will be no such problem,’’ said RPO Chandigarh Rakesh Aggarwal.

He said,“Soon online applications can be filled at the Sampark Centres,Suvidha Kendras and Sanjh Kendras. Chandigarh and Banglore were the first two RPO to go online last year,as per MEA’s pilot project. People who have problem in filling forms online can come to the RPO in Sector 34 and there they will be given assistance to fill the forms.’’

He added that by March 31,2012 all the RPOs in the country will be online,like the Jalandhar,Amritsar and Delhi RPOs. For first three months,manual form filling will also operate with the online system and eventually form filling will only be done online.

Also to make the delivery of the passport fast,RPO will deposit Rs 100 per applicant for police verification at the concerned state police headquarters,if the police does the verification in 21 days. If it takes longer,then that becomes Rs 25 per applicant. Last year,the RPO deposited Rs 2.50 crore with the police. This done on the pretext that policemen have to go to concerned people’s house to do verification.

In the last ten months,the Regional Passport Office (RPO) here has made 2.20 lakh passports,as some 1,300 applications arrive every day.