By the end of February, applicants in four cities of Karnataka can visit a post office for passport-related work.
The Bengaluru Regional Passport Office (RPO) is in the process of setting up Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) in Kalaburagi, Belagavi, Hassan, and Davangere to adhere to instructions from the Centre. This will take the number of POPSKs in the State to five, with Mysuru being chosen for the pilot project in January along with Dahod in Gujarat.
At present, there are four regular Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) under the Bengaluru RPO.
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Regional Passport Officer P.S. Karthigeyan said the new POPSKs will begin in ‘camp mode’ (mobile van or temporary PSK deployed in various areas situated far from the regular PSKs) similar to passport camps that have been organised by the passport office. “Due to the tight deadline given to us, we will start out in camp mode before they become full-fledged PSKs. The post offices will give us manpower and facility,” he said.
The regular PSKs are being run on a PPP-basis (public-private partnership) with Tata Consultancy Services.
The post office staff will be trained on the job to familiarise them with the process, while RPO officials will handle the operations. However, overall control of the POPSKs will continue to remain under the RPO.
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But introduction of POPSKs may not have a bearing on the time taken to issue passports, which is around a month as of now from the time of application till getting the passport in hand for normal cases that require police verification. Without police verification, this duration is less than a week, and three days for tatkal applications. “There could be an increase in volume perhaps, but the biggest advantage will be the increase in accessibility. If successful, all the district headquarters in Karnataka could have POPSKs,” Mr. Karthigeyan said.