The Hindu Business Line : Police verification for passports may go online in AP

Efforts are under way to expedite police verification for passports, often a time-consuming process, through automation. The officials of the regional passport office here have initiated talks with the police to let them have online access to the cleared applications.

"It can be online or it can be through data transfer devices such as floppies or compact discs. We are in talks with the Police Commissionerate in this regard," Mr Bala Bhaskar, the Regional Passport Officer, said.

This will help the passport officials to cut down on time lags. "It takes some time for our staff to include the verification reports in applications after they get them from the police," he said.

Voice-response system

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, he said the office would soon open an interactive voice response system that would handle a variety of queries, including informing the callers about the status of their applications.

The office would also introduce token system in order to streamline the processing of applications. Each of the eight counters would process 20 applications in one hour.

The Hyderabad office has created a national record by issuing maximum number of passports in June. It issued 61,243 passports, while Chandigarh issued 31,617, Delhi 25,841, Bangalore 25,439 and Chennai 24,379.

On an average, the office issued between 30,000 and 35,000 passports a month.

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