The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) is planning to shut down the Regional Passport Office (RPO) at Malappuram, and merge it with the Kozhikode office.
The move comes close on the heels of the RPO in Thane merging with the RPO in Mumbai on August 21. “So far, we have not received any information on the merger,” a senior official told The Hindu on Wednesday.
However, several reasons such as centralised networking of passport offices have been attributed to the move to dismantle the RPO at Malappuram and retain it as a Passport Seva Kendra under the Kozhikode office. Besides, proposals are afoot to start Post Office Passport Seva Kendras at Manjeri and Tirur.
The MEA has taken a decision that allowed the functioning of a RPO within a distance of 100 km. The distance between Malappuram and Kozhikode is less than 50 km.
The Malappuram RPO began functioning in August 2006 after getting bifurcated from the Kozhikode office. Initially, it catered to two revenue districts of Malappuram and Palakkad. However, Palakkad district was attached to Kochi office in 2015 to ease the burden on the Malappuram office.
With this delinking, Malappuram office became the only passport office in the State catering to just one district that has a sizeable NRI population. The office annually issues passports to around 2.15 lakh persons.
Staff strength
Other reasons cited for the proposal is that the Malappuram staff with a sanctioned strength of 38 officers could be shifted to the Kozhikode office. With the MEA having a dedicated server, any office could even otherwise share the work of an overburdened office.
Another reason is that the Malappuram RPO, which functioned from a rented building, is having enormous expenses.
The move to shut down the RPO in Malappuram began in early 2014-15, but the intervention of former External Affairs Minister E. Ahamed made the MEA drop its plans.
