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Passports can now be availed in a go, as government plans to cut-short the lengthy verification processes.
According to recent developments, no police verification is required for reissue of passports against the existing provisions, where minors, government servants and senior citizens (65 years and above) are only exempted from police verification as government said on Wednesday.
“For reissue of passports, police verification is not required, provided the first passport had been issued on the basis of clear police report,” minister of state for external affairs V.K. Singh told Lok Sabha in a written reply.
Undoubtedly, This decision will bring huge relief to applicants facing unnecessary delay due to mandatory police verification for re-issuance of his or her passport. Although, the hassle-free delivery of passports have reduced the need of ‘tatkal’ system of passport issuance for sure, but this process will continue to remain in effect as it serves the purpose of issuing passports for urgent travel needs as stated by the minister.
Concerning to the matter, the home ministry is also working on a country-wide online police verification project for passports that will shorten the time required for issuing the travel document from a month, at present, to just a mere week. The project is supposed to be launched from Bengaluru in November.
As per sources, the project will be under the head of district police — SP or DCP — who will be given access to databases of National Population Register, Aadhaar and the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network System (CCTNS) to enable online verification of identity, address and criminal record, if any, of the applicant.
