Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) has successfully provided new features like ghost image and services to its 50,000 passport applicants in year 2012. Sanatan, Regional Passport officer, announced this in Ranchi during the celebration of PSK’s first anniversary of establishment on Tuesday.
Through a year’s journey, PSK has been able to reduce the problems faced by the applicants in when they approached the passport office. The new facilities the PSK has developed in course of one are multiple.
Earlier, passport service was given at Dhurwa in an offline mode. It tested the patience of people, but now a new mode of online working adopted by PSK has expedited the work of issuing passports.
The online mode of application for passport has reduced the corruption in passport office, where earlier touts and police officials played role. With introduction of the online system they have been completely eliminated from the scene. Earlier, there were also complaints in delaying the reports by police officials during verification, when not given bribe.
Now all the applications are received online. Applicants have to appear in person for their biometric details, photographs and verification of documents at PSK. Now, the government of Jharkhand has brought the verification process by the police authorities under the ambit of Right to service act, which makes it mandatory that the verification process should be completed within 21 days.
“Things have improved a lot and the mandatory processes and procedures are done by automated system without any difficulty. The time involved earlier in generating passport is eliminated. The online-computerised mode of working has also cut short the offline processes involved in manual system from Babus to police officials,” Said Sanatan, Regional Passport officer, Ranchi.
He also added, “It has also helped to do away with the touts in passport office.”
PSK has announced its plans to process about one-lakh applications in this year. It has also added new security feature in passport by introducing ghost image on the first page of passport created out of critical details of applicants, making the passport tamper free.
“PSK has made the passport processing much easier and does not consume much time like earlier. It is also rendering all the services and features properly. We are highly satisfied,” said Hamad, an applicant at PSK office.