As per the official records, over 20,000 passport applications are pending across the State due to delayed verification done by the district police.
According to the Regional Passport Officer in Ranchi, print command for any passport is generated only when it gets clearance from the Superintendent of Police of the concerned police station after verifying the applicant physically at the given address.
Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Dhanbad and Bokaro, according to the officials, top the list of delayed police verification.
“As Passport is a fundamental right to every citizen, delay in police report amounts to the infringement of the fundamental right,” said Regional Passport Officer Sanathan. If it could be done within 12 days in Delhi and 4 days in Hyderabad, why it could not be done within 21 days in Jharkhand, questioned the RPO.
Even after the Central Government sanctioned Rs 150 per passport for doing the verification work within 21 days and Rs 50 for exceeding 21 days, proper time frame is not being maintained here amounting to a loss of Rs 2 lakh for State exchequer.
According to Sanathan, under the Right to Service Act, police are required to finish police verification within 21 days of the Regional Passport Office sending the application to the district concerned, but verifications are pending for months in many cases which are also a violation of the act.
On an average, 250-300 Passport applications are received per day by the Passport office.
“Once a person appears for the interview and biometric cataloguing, his application is generally processed the same day ensuring that there are no delays. But once it gets forwarded to the police, the ball is in police court. As many as 20000 cases till date are pending with the police,” said the Passport Officer.
Anurag Gupta, ADG (Special Branch), who is a nodal agency for police verification on the other hand, said that the number was not important rather period was important in case of Passports.
“The figure is not as bad as it happened to be earlier and there is also a steep decline in the number of complaints which we have been receiving these days,” said Gupta.