Hyderabad, August 10: The Regional Passport Office has done away with the token system so applicants need not wait in long queues from early morning to submit Tatkal applications.
In the new system, in force from Monday, applicants can come to the passport office around 7 am and stand in separate queues to directly submit passport applications at the different counters — labelled regular, emergency, elderly-children-women and VIP. Applicants are advised to submit normal applications at e seva centres and post offices and only come to the RPO for the Tatkal scheme.
The RPO, which clears around 1,000 passports a day, has now set a daily target of 3,000. The staff will work in two shifts and on Saturdays too.
The regional passport officer, Dr K. Srikar Reddy, said, “We are accepting applications till 3 pm so that we can accommodate all who come here. We now accept around 500 applications daily. There is no need for applicants to come at night too.”
After a fake document racket was unearthed, the RPO has temporarily stopped issuing tatkal passports requiring submission of three out of 15 prescribed documents. These are now issued only on the pre-verification certificate, which can be issued by an official of undersecretary rank and above, IAS, IPS and other civil services officials and also by the station house officer, circle inspector or mandal revenue officer. A photocopy of the ID card and contact details of the issuing officer must be attached.
“We will bring back the earlier system when we get full access to all databases of government departments issuing the documents so that we can verify them on-line,” Mr Reddy said.
An emergency counter for students writing GRE, Toefl, for medical reasons and those attending business conferences will be open during office hours.
As a result of the changes, the RPO has issued a record 19,000 passports in the last one week. Around 100 authorised agents have been asked not to visit the office as applications will only be accepted at e-seva centres.
Once the passport seva kendras become operational, applicants can directly submit fingerprints and get photographs taken.
In spite of the improvements, 50,000 applications are pending with the police and another 20,000 have been put on hold because of improper documents. Complaints can be dropped in drop boxes or sent to rpo.hyderabad@mea.gov.in