Now book your passport slots online 24/7

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