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Karnataka
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SM Krishna opens passport service centres | External Affairs Minister S M Krishna said on Friday that the inauguration of passport seva centres marks the culmination of a long and arduous process of changing a 50-year old system in line with today’s needs. Addressing the gathering after inaugurating passport seva centres at Bangalore
, Mangalore and Hubli, Krishna said: “Inauguration marks a red letter day in the
quest of my Ministry to bring about quantum improvement in the quality of Passport
services to our citizens.” “This also marks the culmination of a long and arduous
process of changing a 50-year old system in line with today’s needs,” he added.
Krishna said the change involved a study of the existing processes, study of the
procedures being followed in other countries, adapting these best practices to
India . “There were challenges and difficulties which needed to be surmounted
before the system could be opened to the public,” Krishna said. In his address,
Krishna said the era of globalisation has brought rapid change in the growth rate
and integrated India more closely with changing world. “The process of economic
liberalization and reforms envisioned by Shri Rajiv Gandhiji and pursued with
dedication and redoubled vigour by the central government since the early 1990s,
brought about high growth rates and also integrated our country more closely into
the rapidly globalising world,” he said. “The resultant opportunities and the
growing proportion of the youth in our county pushed the demand for passports
to unprecedented levels and between 1958 and 2006, the number of passport applicants
increased 133 times and between 2006 and 2010, the number of passport applicants
almost doubled,” Krishna added. The project involves setting up of seventy seven
state of the art Passport Seva Kendras across the country in the first phase,
a 24x 7 call centre operating in 18 languages, capturing biometrics of all applicants,
more counters and increased public dealing hours. The project also provides connectivity
of the system to the district police headquarters to ensure faster police verification,
status updates to the citizens through SMS and email, and uniform procedures and
transparent and time bound completion of all processes. “Live trials have revealed
that these measures have indeed led to a quantum improvement in the speed of processing
of passport applications,” Krishna said. Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has
enhanced the amount payable to the State Government from Rs 100/- to Rs 150/-
per verification. “I would like to request the State Government, through the good
offices of the Hon’ble Chief Minister and the senior police officials present,
to extend their fullest cooperation to the Passport Office to get all police verification
done expeditiously for the benefit of the residents of Karnataka State ,” Krishna
said. In his address Krishna also appreciated the work of Tata Consultancy Serivices.
Krishna also said a similar centre would be launched at Chandigarh in June. After
the pilot locations start working and are certified by an independent authority,
the project will be rolled out across the country. |
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