KL Report

SRINAGAR

Expediting disposal of pending passport applications, the Passport Office Kashmir has issued 38000 passports in nine months since January this year.  Moreover, to ease up the cumbersome process of collecting Line of Control Permit forms from the office, the Passport authorities have now made these forms available online.

Taking to a local news agency, KNS, Firdous Iqbal, the Passport Officer Kashmir said, “Keeping in view the urgency of applicants, we have expedited the process by easing up many procedural formalities.” Iqbal said that since January upto October 8, his office had received 49000 passport applications out of which 38000 cases have been disposed of by issuing passports in favour of the applicants.

“Rest of the applications are under process and I hope by the end of this year we will be able to dispose of the pending applications provided these applications fulfill all the prerequisites,” the Passport Officer Kashmir added. Pertinently, in year 2012 the Passport Office Kashmir had issued 61500 passports which was a record number of passport issued in the history of Passport Office Kashmir, sources said. “That year the number of passports issued reflected 48 per cent increase in passports issued in 2011,” sources added.

In order to reduce the number of days involved in police verification, the Passport Officer Kashmir said the physical movement of personal particular forms from Passport Office to concerned agencies has been done away with. “Now these forms can be downloaded by the concerned verification agencies on the same day of granting of application at the Passport Office,” Iqbal informed KNS.

He disclosed that now the LoC permit forms can also be downloaded by the intending applicants through a website (www.passportindia.gov.in) under permit/print application form link. “This process has already been started by us some few days ago,” Iqbal told KNS.

Stating that Jammu and Kashmir has the privilege to be among the top five states as far as state wise number of applications received for Haj 2013 is concerned, the Passport Officer Kashmir said 21697 applications were received by the Haj authorities for the year 2013 in Jammu and Kashmir.

It is pertinent to mention here that the Passport authorities have received two prestigious awards for its marvelous services including CSI NIHILENT e-governance award for the year 2011-12 and e-governance certificate of excellence Government to Citizens (G2C) initiative.

The online appointment process started by the Passport authorities has been hailed be people and now keeping in view the overwhelming response from the people, the Passport Office has eased up this process further. “The online appointment process has also been eased and even the facility of depositing money online has also been provided to the people,” Iqbal informed.

 

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