DM offices to receive passport applications

chandigarh: the district magistrate offices in punjab will now have the authority to receive and scrutinise passport applications. the process, which was earlier scheduled to start from january 1, 2002 in eighteen districts of punjab, has been deferred to january 15. the onus of verification of passport applications will also be on the officials of the district magistrate.talking to times of india about the district-level scheme,regional passport officer arvind kumar informed that from january 15, all district commissions in punjab will start accepting passport applications. the executive magistrate will be authorised to forward the forms only after checking the records of the applicant. "the applications can also be sent to for police verification at the district level," said kumar, adding that two officers from each district commission had been trained for the purpose. the verified applications will then be sent to the regional office, chandigarh, twice a week. as per the directions of the ministry of external affairs, it was stated that wherever the number of applications was more than 10,000 per annum, a dedicated office of passport authority under the focal point of district magistrate would be set up. the system, already functional in andhra pradesh and sikkim, will soon be extended to himachal pradesh as well. at present, training of officials from himachal pradesh is on, informed kumar. in haryana, however, the scheme is only at the proposal stage. in punjab, the process has been delayed by fifteen days as the computer software is yet to be organised. officials of the passport department maintain that the move is for speedy issuance of a passport. moreover, checking applications at the district level will reduce the percentage of error. earlier, on september 10, the department had started speed-post passport centres to reduce the load on the regional passport office. however, officials say that the process of receiving applications by speed post has been full of error. "due to high level of ignorance in remote areas, the applications sent by post are full of mistakes," said officials, adding that the task of further revising applications becomes cumbersome. this scheme will reduce the work load and also error level, they said. backlog cleared owing to computerised issuing of passports, the regional passport office issued 1,06,920 passports in 2001, clearing a backlog in the process. officials maintain that the target achieved is the highest so far.