Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

“Do not fall prey to touts and agents”

MADURAI: Passport Officer Jose K. Mathew has appealed to all applicants visiting the Passport Office here not to fall prey to touts and agents for filling up application forms.

To offer assistance to applicants, an ex-servicemen assistance counter has been set up inside the Passport Office premises. According to a press release issued here on Monday, the facilitation counter would help the applicants in filling up forms and documents to be attached. It had come to the notice of officials that a number of poor and illiterate persons were misguided, cheated and even robbed of large sums by touts who promised to get passports swiftly.

The touts, it had come to light, who were operating in front of the passport office, were charging exorbitant sums for filling up application forms.

Many applicants said that they were put to untold hardship due to the attitude of some staff members at the Passport Office.

A 55-year-old woman from Tirunelveli, who had recently undergone knee replacement surgery, said that two days ago when she came to file her application, she was issued a token. After sitting at the office for three hours, she was asked to leave the hall at 1.p.m. and come again after 2 p.m. The woes were similar for many others, who had come from as far as Kanyakumari and Kodaikanal.

A senior executive of a travel agency in Madurai said that though the online applicants were given a specific timing to appear with relevant documents, they had to wait for long hours. A senior citizen from Dindigul who had come here to file an application under tatkal along with his daughter-in-law said that they left their place as early as 5 a.m. with a three-month-old child and there was no decent restaurant in the nearby area.

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