Opening of the first batch of new Post Office Passport Seva Kend…

The
Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Department of Posts (DOP) announced
on 24 January, 2017 their decision to utilize the Head Post Offices (HPO) in
the various States as Post Office Passport Seva Kendra (POPSK) for delivering
passport related services to the citizens of our country. The objective of this
partnership is to extend passport services on a larger scale and to ensure
wider area coverage.

The
pilot projects for this joint venture between MEA and DOP was inaugurated on 25
January, 2017 at the HPO at Mysuru in Karnataka by Shri Ananth Kumar, Minister
for Chemicals & Fertilizers and Parliamentary Affairs; and at the Post
Office at Dahod in Gujarat by Gen (Retd.) Dr. V.K.Singh, Minister of State for
External Affairs, and Shri Jaswantsinh Sumanbhai Bhabhor, Minister of State for
Tribal Affairs, Government of India. The POPSK at these two places have been
running successfully since their inauguration. One hundred appointments are
being released every day for each of these POPSK.

With
the successful operationalization of these two pilot projects, the Government
has now decided to scale up this programme by opening 56 POPSKs at the
following places in the first batch of expansion:

MEA and DOP are working closely for the early commencement of passport related
services at the above mentioned POPSK. Once fully functional, applicants who
apply for their passports on-line through the Passport Portal will be able to
schedule an appointment at the above POPSK to complete the formalities
necessary prior to the issue of the passport.

Following
the liberalization of passport policies announced on 23 December, 2016, we have
seen nearly 30% surge in demand for passports. For example, a record number of
53,400 applications were processed on 7.2.2017 out of which 49,259 were fresh
applications. This is the highest since the commencement of the Passport Seva
Project. Our Passport Offices are conducting special Passport Melas during the
weekends to cater to the increasing demand for passports.

The
pilot projects of the Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSK) have been
running successfully at Mysuru and Dahod. We have been releasing 100
appointments for Mysuru and Dahod POPSK per day with cent per cent utilization.
Appointments for Mysuru are now available in ten days while at Dahod it is
available the next day. 

These
are clear indicators that the liberalization of the passport policies and
opening of the POPSK have been successful efforts of the Government that have
been welcomed by our citizens. We expect that opening of these additional POPSK
would further help our citizens in getting passports easily.

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YSKataria