Getting a passport has never been this easy.
“We are able to give appointments to online applicants the very next day, except occasionally at the Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) in Thrissur, and passports are issued within three days of receipt of police verification report,” says R.O. Sunil Babu, Regional Passport Officer, Ernakulam.
“Tatkal passports are issued on the same day and we try our level best to address grievances without having the candidate to appear in person,” he says.
The only sore point is that the police in Kerala take 24 days, on an average, to complete the verification process.
The situation is better in Kochi, with the police taking an average time of 21 days to complete verifications for close to 80 per cent applications. There is an improvement by 13 per cent over 2013, he says.
Mr. Babu said the Regional Passport Office in Ernakulam released some 2,050 appointment slots daily for all the five PSKs under it — Thrissur, Aluva, Tripunithura, Kottayam and Alappuzha. In 2014, the RPO received 2.9 lakh applications for passport and related services and issued 3.28 lakh passport and related documents. This marked an increase in the number of applications received as well as services rendered by 14 per cent compared to the previous year.
Mr. Babu also contended that there had been a considerable drop in malpractices related to passport services. “Fake documentation is few and far between,” he said.
The RPO Ernakulam, he said, would now conduct quarterly passport seva camps in the Lakshadweep Islands to enable the citizens there to avail themselves of the services.
