Residents of Vellore district need not travel to Chennai to apply for a passport. The Regional Passport Office, Chennai, has opened a Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) at the Head Post Office (HPO), Vellore.
POPSK, Vellore, is the fifth Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) set up under the Passport Seva Project scheme by RPO, Chennai.
There are three PSKs in Chennai and one Passport Seva Laghu Kendra in Puducherry.
“The Passport Seva Project was implemented in 2012 and there are 77 PSKs under 37 RPOs in the country,” P.K. Ashok Babu, Regional Passport Officer, Chennai, said at the inauguration of the facility on Saturday.
The kendra will process fresh applications and those seeking re-issue of passports. The applicants should visit the POPSK at the scheduled time after making an online appointment.
“In the first phase, we will cater to 50 applications a day from Monday. In two or three weeks, we will cater to 100 applications in a day. We will expand the facility depending on demand from the public in six months,” he said.
Mr. Babu said there was a huge demand for passport services because Vellore was a big district. “At least 10% of the applications received in Chennai are from Vellore district. From January to December 2016, the RPO, Chennai, issued 4.3 lakh passports,” he said.
He pointed out that there were several educational institutions in Vellore and many persons residing in Vaniyambadi belt went to work in Gulf countries. The documentation had been made easy after December 23, 2016, and this would increase the demand for passports to five lakh.
Police verification
The RPO, Chennai, was working on making police verification process paper-free.
“The Police department is studying software that was given by us. We send papers to the District Police Office from where it goes to the police station and is returned in the same way. This takes about four to five days. Instead, we want to computerise it and make it available on the mobile phone or tab of a police officer so that it can be cleared and sent,” he told presspersons. This way, there would be no paper trail and the process could be completed in two days, he added.
Member of Parliament (Vellore) B. Senguttuvan, who inaugurated the POPSK, urged the passport officials to appoint a person fluent in Tamil and English as public relations officer at the POPSK.
Radhika Chakravarthy, postmaster general, Chennai City Region, said a Common Service Centre would be opened at the HPO, Vellore.
A. Govindarajan, director of postal services, Chennai City Region, said that people can now take appointments for passport applications at the service centre.
P. Karthikeyan, Vellore MLA, was present.
