SRINAGAR: The Union Government has no proposal at present to establish a Passport Office in every district of the country, including Jammu and Kashmir, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) informed the Lok Sabha on Friday.
In a written reply to an unstarred question, Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh said the expansion of passport services is an ongoing process and is based on factors including the scalability of existing Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) and Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs), distance from existing facilities and the demand and volume of passport applications in a particular region.
Jammu and Kashmir currently has two Regional Passport Offices (RPOs), located in Jammu and Srinagar, along with two Passport Seva Kendras at Jammu and Srinagar. The Union Territory also has five POPSKs functioning at Kathua, Rajouri, Udhampur, Anantnag and Baramulla.
For Ladakh, the Ministry has listed a POPSK at Leh under the RPO Srinagar.
The Ministry said that, nationally, 93 PSKs and 456 POPSKs are currently functional under 37 RPOs. It added that the Passport Seva Project (PSP), launched in May 2010, was implemented in Public Private Partnership mode to augment and improve the delivery of passport services.
According to the Government, the MEA, in association with the Department of Posts, decided in January 2017 to open POPSKs at Head Post Offices and Post Offices in Lok Sabha constituencies where no PSK or POPSK was available.
The Ministry said further expansion of Passport Offices, PSKs and POPSKs would depend on regional requirements and other operational factors, with no specific roadmap or timeline announced for establishing a Passport Office in every district.
