To streamline the system of police verification for issue of passports, the State Government has directed for computerisation of the entire process by July 1.
Reviewing the process at a high-level review meeting here on Tuesday, Chief Secretary JK Mohapatra said that since around 80 per cent of passport applications come from the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Commissionerate jurisdiction, automation of the process in these areas would be focused in the first phase while the process would be rolled out to other areas in subsequent phases.
It was revealed that there has been a phenomenal increase in the number of applications for passports. In the last calendar year, 78,262 passports were issued online from the Bhubaneswar office which was 53 per cent more than the number issued during 2012. A target has been set to issue 1 lakh passports through the online system by the end of December this year.
With police verification made online, the process would be expedited and services would be provided in the least possible time at par with other metro cities of the country, the meeting decided.