Bengaluru, Oct 17: Here's good news for passport applicants in Karnataka. The Regional Passport Office is taking all necessary steps to ensure that the applicants get the passports within 10 days.
“From the time an applicant applies for a passport to passport delivery and completion of police verification, it should take about 10 days,” said P S Karthigeyan, regional passport officer-Karnataka.
"In September, we took an average of 13 days in Bengaluru and it was 25 days across the state. This is possible because of the mobile passport police app which was piloted first in Bengaluru with five police stations in May 2016. From August it has been extended to all police stations in Bengaluru," he said.
The app allows cops to download the digital copies of applications cleared by passport officers and upload the verification immediately from the field, thus reducing the time and paper use.
Karnataka has been second highest issuer of passports in 2015 after Lucknow—6.18 lakh passports issued in the calendar year. As on last Thursday, the RPO issued five lakh passports and hopes to issue 6.3 lakhs by the end of this year. Of the volume, Karthigeyan claims 45% applications come from Bengaluru alone.
"But we are not seeing a drastic increase in demand for passports as compared to 2013 and 2014. One of the reasons we think, may be, the penetration of passport holders in Karnataka is much higher than few other states like Lucknow," he added.
It has already reduced the wait period for one day for appointment slots, the officer claimed. Last year, it held 27 passport melas to expedite and resolve pending applications. This year, RPO Karnataka has already held seven camps and one more is being organised in Chitradurga on Saturday.
That is not it. Beginning October 13, the state RPO is also authorized to attest or apostille documents required for visa or other purposes by existing passport holders. The documents however, have to be submitted to four outsourced agencies—BLS International Services (Shivajinagar), VFS Global Services(Shivajinagar), IVS Global (Sheshadripuram) and Superb Enterprises (Infantry road).
"We have set up a attestation cell in the Koramangala headquarters of RPO where two senior passport officers will attest documents that must be originated and issued from Karnataka. Even if people living in other states have documents originating or issued from Karnataka, it will be attested. This will take two days," he said.
Ministry of external affairs has prescribed a fee of Rs 18 and Rs 20 for different types of documents and a fixed fee of Rs 150 to be paid to the outsourced agency.
The kidnapped schoolboy was rescued by the police and reunited with his parents. Son of a gift shop owner from Basavanagudi area in Bengaluru, Chirag has reportedly told police that decided to make some quick money to spend on cricket betting and gambling after learning kidnap tricks from the ‘Crime Patrol’. According to police, Chirag reached a private school around 3pm on Tuesday on a Bounce rental bike and zeroed in on a fourth standard student who was walking out of school. He told the boy he was his father's friend and that he required help to search for a relative who had gone missing. The boy believed Chirag and rode pillion on the bike. Chirag then engaged the boy in conversation and learnt about his father's business and got his mobile phone number. He then made a call to the boy's father, demanded Rs 5 lakh and warned him against approaching cops. However, the boy's father alerted Cottonpet police and special teams were formed to crack the case. While Cottonpet inspector Venkatesh TC's squad verified CCTV footage in and around the school, Chamarajpet inspector BG Kumaraswamy's team started tracking the suspect's mobile phone movements. An hour later, the suspect's location was traced to a hotel on the Lavelle Road-St Mark's Road stretch. Police rushed there, rescued the boy and arrested Chirag.
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Wow Karnataka citizens.....I wish its true....
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