For providing faster passport services, efforts are on to launch the Passport Seva Kendra here on October 5, the day when PSKs at Tirupati and Nizamabad are also expected to be declared open for the public.
Conceived by the Ministry of External Affairs, the PSKs function under the Passport Seva Project with the Tata Consultancy Services as a partner to maintain the services. The PSK Vijayawada is developed on 10,000 sft built up area at Midcity Hotel building in a modern facility located on the MG Road near the All India Radio office.
Under the project, about 250 passport applicants can be serviced each day at the PSK Vijayawada, which will be linked to the Hyderabad Passport Office. The collection of passport application, police verification and other basic aspects of it will be dealt with at the PSK itself with the RPO, Hyderabad, playing a role only in printing and despatch of the passport.
As per the new procedures, an applicant is likely to get his or her passport within 14 days of having submitted the same at the PSK and any enquiry can also be made at the local office, said Muthavarapu Muralikrishna, president of the Andhra Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It would be a very good facility for the people of the region and they would access effective passport services. The Andhra Chamber helped in finding the location for city PSK's office.
The PSK Vijayawada will provide services to the people from Krishna, West Godavari, Prakasam and Khammam districts, Mr. Muralikrishna said and added that there would also be a bank counter and coffee shop for the convenience of the applicants. A photo capturing centre, separate processing wing for women and ramp for handicapped persons are other facilities which will be available.
At the PSK Vijayawada, reissue of passports and tatkal applications will also be taken up. An applicant can visit after taking an online appointment and submission of his or her application will be completed within 45 minutes. An additional Rs. 200 will be collected towards service charges.
The beginning of services at PSKs will greatly ease the burden and rush at the Regional Passport Office in Hyderabad where nearly 2,500 applications are being dealt with as of now each day. Under the central project, seven PSKs are being established in all in Andhra Pradesh of which the one in Visakhapatnam has already started operations.
