State to get 4 more passport centres

Gulbarga will have mini passport kiosk; Krishna visits new PSKs in Bangalore

On his visit to the two new PSKs at Marathahalli and Lalbagh Road here on Saturday, Minister of External Affairs S M Krishna said reforms were urgently needed in issuing passports. A few months ago, some citizen-friendly structural reforms were effected in passport offices.

“These days there can be no compromise on the security check regulations,” Krishna remarked. He said a mini passport kiosk will be set up in Gulbarga too.

The Union Minister said India’s growing global profile in the recent past has led to the Ministry receiving a very large number of applications.

“As many as 57 lakh passports were issued in 2009, and by 2011, it will increase to 100 lakh. Hence all PSKs have to be geared to meet this requirement with the passage of time”, he said.

As part of the e-governance initiative, 77 PSKs will be established across the country to accept passport applications. The pilot PSKs at Bangalore and Chandigarh will be operational soon. Trial runs at these kendras had already begun and the initial response has been successful.

Krishna said online secure link with police authorities at the district headquarters in all States and Union Territories for quick movement of police verification information has been initiated.

“A centralised IT system comprising Data Center at Delhi and Disaster Recovery Centre is being set up at Chennai to which all the PSKs, present passport offices, district police headquarters will be connected”, the Minister added.

Features

*PSKs are the extended arms of the Central Passport Organisation (CPO) of the Ministry of External Affairs and are headed by a senior officer or assistant passport office of the CPO at each centre.

*PSKs will deliver all passport-related services via timely transparent, accessible and streamlined processes.

*Effective information system, including three national call centres and grievance addressal system or status of application via SMS.

*Access to PSKs or the passport offices would be based exclusively on the biometrics of the concerned individuals.