Now, you may not have to travel too far to get your passport as the government has come up with a plan to open passport centres within a radius of 50 km from each other.
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Saturday announced the launch of 149 new Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs).
These will be in addition to the 86 POPSKs announced by the Ministry of External Affairs in the first phase, an initiative undertaken jointly by the MEA and the Department of Post.
Looking northeast
Since coming to power, the NDA government has also opened 16 PSKs, with a priority given to the Northeastern States, Ms. Swaraj said. Prior to this, there were 77 PSKs in the country.
Ms. Swaraj said when she took charge in the Ministry, she realised that “proximity” was the biggest hurdle in applying for passports.
“We have set up a target that no one has to travel more than a radius of 50 km to get a passport,” she said, adding that the Ministry and the DoP were working to map 810 head post offices.
She also said more POPSKs would be opened in the third phase after the completion of mapping and checking the viability of post offices.
Ms. Swaraj also launched a portal for the Know India Programme (KIP), an initiative by the Ministry for Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) in the age group of 18 to 30 years.
The aim of the KIP is to help PIO youth know their roots and contemporary India. Launched in 2004, the scheme has 40 editions under which 1,293 PIO youth have visited India.
In 2016, the scheme was revamped to increase its duration from 21 to 25 days, with a 10-day visit to one or two States and preference given to PIOs from Girmitiya countries. From 2016, six KIPs are being organised a year.
