Regional Passport Officer Dr K. Srikar Reddy on Friday stated that the Centre has decided to revise Passport and related services’ fees from October 1.
In a pressnote, the RPO has stated that the current regime of Passport fee came into force in July, 1993 subsequent to the passing of the Passport (Amendment) Bill, 1992 which permits the Government to fix the Passport fee on the basis of actual cost incurred on issuing of a Passport. In 1993, passport fee was fixed at Rs 300 which was increased to Rs 1000 in 2002. He stated that over the last ten years, costs relating to establishment, capital expenditure, procurement of equipment, reimbursement to police authorities, payment to India Posts, printing of passport booklets, personalization costs, IT expenses and contractual payment to Service Providers (such as TCS, NIC, NISG, C-DAC, STQC and ISP) have gone up considerably necessitating increase in passport and related services fees from October 1.
The Passport fee is being increased by Rs 500 raising to Rs 1500 for normal applications and by
Rs 1000 raising to Rs 3500 for Tatkal applications. For citizens living abroad, the revised fee would be USD 75.00 (from 40.00) and Euro 60.00 (from 48.00) for normal applications.
During the last few years, the Ministry has been engaged in comprehensive reforms in delivery of Passport services as envisioned under Passport Seva Project – a citizen-centric e-Governance initiative as part of the National e-Governance Plan. Under the Project, the Ministry has already set up all planned 77 Passport Seva Kendras in the country. The Ministry remains committed to further improving passport service infrastructure, fine-tuning technical solutions and re-engineering business processes in order to make getting a Passport an easier affair for the citizens. (NSS)