Now book your passport slots online 24/7

August 7, 2013

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Bangalore, Aug 7: Getting an online appointment for your passport may get easy now. The Regional Passport Office on Tuesday announced it will accept online applications round the clock.

Until now, the online-appointment window opened at 6.30pm, and all slots were booked within minutes. And applicants had to wait for the next day to strike an appointment.

The round-the-clock facility will ensure fewer complaints of access problems and prevent applicants from approaching touts, said state regional passport officer (RPO) P S Karthigeyan. It is available at both BangaloreOne and KarnatakaOne centres. The walk-in time for applicants to seek appointment at passport seva kendras (PSKs) remains the same — from 9.30am to 11am.

The RPO said the number of monthly appointment slots has increased from 37,900 to 49,800 since December 2012. He spoke of a plan to increase the number of annual slots by 30,000. With this, Karnataka will be able to issue 4.8 lakh passports a year, up from 4 lakh.

Passports are currently delivered in 51 days, of which 35 days are set aside for police verification. Karthigeyan said: "Thanks to 'Direct to Thana' (a police-PSK project), police verification is cut to 21 days and passports are delivered in 35 days. Police personnel get Rs 100 in incentive if they process it faster."

Karnataka's Passport Seva Kendras have recorded a 32% rise in passport deliveries in the past six months. The average monthly passport despatch has increased from 28,700 to 39,500. July saw 49,800 appointments allotted and 40,000 passports delivered.

The RPO plans to make the waiting time for appointments uniform at all the Kendras. Now, it is 35 days at the Lalbagh facility and 10 days elsewhere. Officials said the Gulbarga Passport Application Centre will be upgraded to a mini-Kendra, and the external affairs ministry was examining other PSK proposals.

More e-features

* Pay online via credit or debit cards (Master and Visa), and internet banking via SBI facility. Applicants can use challan option on the website and deposit the amount in any SBI branch

* Android app mPassport Seva allows users to track passport status, locate PSKs and provides information

* To prevent smudging of photographs and data on passport booklets, the ministry has launched a tamper-proof letter-screen image or ghost-image security feature

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News Network
February 19,2020

Dubai, Feb 19: A 25-year-old Indian engineer allegedly fell to his death from a residential apartment in Dubai, according to a media report.

Sabeel Rahman, from Kerala who has been living in Dubai since 2018, fell off the building near his work site, The Khaleej Times quoted a social worker as saying.

Naseer Vatanapally, the social worker, is assisting the family to repatriate his mortal remains back home to Thirur in Malappuram district, the report said.

"The case is a bit unusual. We''re not sure why he went to the building near his worksite," said Naseer Vatanapally.

"His family is unaware of any issues he may have faced. He had asked his brother to collect a new mobile phone he had purchased online - which they received. He had no reason to take his life," he added.

Rahman was the youngest of four siblings. The devastated family is awaiting details from the Rashidiya Police Station. "Following legal procedures, we will repatriate his body back home," he said.

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News Network
May 18,2020

Mangaluru, May 18: A boat which was engaged in an operation to fix the pipe relating to the reverse osmosis plant of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) at Tannibavi turned turtle due to strong wind.

Two workers had gone missing in the incident that occurred on Sunday late evening, and one of them was rescued shortly thereafter.

The person who has not yet been found happens to be Pandu Pist from Mumbai. The person who was rescued was Santosh from Dakshina Kannada.

Three workers from West Bengal who were facing danger were also rescued.

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News Network
February 22,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 22: Thanks to joint efforts by the Protector of Emigrants in Bengaluru and Indian Embassy in Qatar, a 26-year-old woman from Karnataka who had been kept in confinement in Qatar has been rescued and brought back to India.

Anupama (name changed) from Holenarasipura in Hassan district arrived in Bengaluru on Thursday night. She was allegedly locked up in a house for 14 days, restrained from using a mobile and wasn't fed. There were three other women with her. On the midnight of February 12, they broke the window panes and fled before contacting local police.

Anupama, a diploma graduate in computer science, was jobless and her friend working in Kuwait suggested she try for a job abroad. She contacted an agency based in Chikkamagaluru which offered her a nanny's job in Qatar. After document verification, the agency demanded she pay Rs 2 lakh but she said she didn't have that kind of money.

The agency sent Anupama on a visitor visa but told her if questioned by immigration officials, she must claim she was visiting her sister. They also gave her a return ticket.

As Anupama was travelling abroad for the first time, she said she was ignorant about several things.

On January 12, Anupama left Bengaluru. But as she reached Qatar, all her documents, including passport, were confiscated by the agency. Her return ticket was cancelled and she was sent to a house to work as babysitter-cum-cook for Rs 30,000. She lived with four other maids in the same house, where they were made to work for 16-18 hours a day.

"I used to wake up around 5.30am every day and had to prepare breakfast for the employers by 6.30am. My work would end around 11pm every day. We never even got time to eat," Anupama told media on Friday. Four days into work, Anupama's nose started bleeding. However, the employers cared little and insisted she continue to work. After 18 days, she requested her employers that she be relieved.

The agency sent her to a house where three women were already present and locked her up with them. "They used to give us a glass of raw rice, an onion, tomato and potato to cook for ourselves. While we got rice every day, we had to use the vegetables for three days. We were not supposed to use mobiles or go out. Two people were monitoring us," she recalled.

Anupama and the others decided to approach police but for that they needed to escape. Around 1.30am on February 12, the four women managed to break window panes and jumped out. They ran for more than a kilometre and managed to approach police, who summoned the agency and got the women to speak to their families.

Anupama called her brother-in-law, who approached the Protector of Emigrants office in Koramangala, Bengaluru. Shubham Singh, PoE in Bengaluru, said they took up the issue with the Indian Embassy in Qatar, which immediately got in touch with Qatar police. Anupama said, "We were kept in prison for a couple of days and were sent to the deportation centre later."

Meanwhile, the Indian embassy got the agency to return the women's documents. However, the agents did not pay their salaries. Two of the women were sent to Hyderabad and the third to Kerala. On Friday, Anupama met Singh at his office, where her statement was recorded. "We have started the process of initiating action against the agency in India," he said.

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