Police check for passport may take just 8 days in future

February 21, 2016

The humble passport is creating its own little revolution in governance in India. Like the landline telephone of yore, the acquisition of a passport signalled a rise in social status a few decades ago because you had jumped through several hoops to get it.passport

Over the past few years, Indians have found it easier to get a new passport or have one renewed at computerised seva kendras, which have taken some of the tension out of the exercise, and serve 50,000 people a day. The passport, like the Aadhar card, is writing its own governance script, and government departments are adapting to keep up.

By the end of 2015, 6.33 crore Indian citizens possessed valid passports, up from 5.19 crore in 2013. This week, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) expanded its footprint with a passport kendra in Arunachal Pradesh. "We now cover the entire country," says Muktesh Pardeshi, chief passport officer.

Appointed India's next ambassador to Mexico, Pardeshi has helmed the MEA's passport campaign for the past five years. Having spruced up the front end of the passport service system by tying up with TCS and boosting manpower, Pardeshi says they are now tackling the back end. The weakest link here is police verification, but it is also the most critical component of the passport issuance process.

We all know how tough that can get — a deadly cocktail of inefficiency and corruption. Last year, MEA and states held a brainstorming session to fix this. In the past months, technology, coercion and political push has succeeded in integrating 683 of 731 police districts in India with the passport system online.

This means police verification documents travel from passport offices to the police stations electronically, and return the same way. Police stations can no longer say, "document kho gaya" or no one was available to carry the papers. An e-trail shows how long the police station sat on it. This is very different from the days when you pleaded with the police station, or looked for someone who could "influence" them and found yourself funding a lot of "chai-paani" along the way.

Directors general of police in all the states have been provided with electronic dashboards to track progress, and pull up errant officials. In 2015, this brought the time taken for verification down to 34 days from 49 in 2013 despite the fact that passport applications shot by 40% across the country. This year, it is expected to come down to eight days. "We will soon bring J&K and Nagaland police districts within this ambit," Pardeshi said.

The revolution has been most visible in Uttar Pradesh. Over the past couple of years that the new system has been in practice, UP has jumped from issuing 6.5 lakh passports to 13 lakh passports a year. In 2015, UP, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Kerala issued more than 10 lakh passports each. At the five-lakh-mark are West Bengal, Telangana, Gujarat, Karnataka and Punjab, while the highest growth was seen in Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura.

MEA has reduced the categories of passports that need pre-police verification, and is aiming for post-verification for the bulk of Indian citizens. So, if you submit your Aadhaar, voter and PAN cards and a signed affidavit, you can pick up your passport and travel, and get verified after you return.

By August 2015, MEA had completely integrated the Aadhaar database with the passport system. This has taken the passport issuance process closer to a biometric verification.
MEA is also pushing for the early rollout of the crime and criminal tracking and networking system (CCTNS), which will be able to verify if you have a criminal record.

But police verification can never be done away with, so the MEA has developed an app for the police. Constables will receive their assignments on the app, which is GPS-enabled, and they can take photographs, scan documents and mail them to their bosses.
Commissioners are equipped to assign services and check the verification before reverting to the RPO. The app is connected to an online SMS system which seeks instant citizen feedback, keeping policemen on their toes. Seems like it's time for everyone to fly.

Comments

Mohammed
 - 
Monday, 22 Feb 2016

Really sad that Inside passport office in Bangalore, they started imposing fines on poor people. The Last Counter officials dont know to talk Hindi, English, or Kannada in Bangalore Passport Office. They can talk only in Tamil. Recently My Relative who was labour was fined for Rs.5000/- & reason was untold. The lady officer who fined him was not ready to tell reason at all.
Really sad there is nobody inside the passport office to help poor people who want to go out of country for their livelihood. The first two counters inside the bangalore office are from TCS. The last counter is Ministry official who are so old, who cant even operate the computers perfectly. The ministry is misusing our Tax funds in wrong manner. The poor people are fined for no reason.

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
Ram Puniyani
March 8,2020

They say ‘history repeats itself first as a tragedy and then as a farce’. In case of India, communal violence not only keeps repeating itself, the pattern of the tragedy keeps changing every next time. Some features of the violence are constant, but they are under the wraps mostly. The same can be said about the Delhi violence (February 2020). The interpretations, the causative factors are very discernible, but those who are generally the perpetrators have a knack of shifting the blame on the victim community or those who stand for the victims.

As the carnage began presumably in the aftermath of statement of Kapil Mishra of BJP, which was given in front of a top police official, in which he threatened to get the roads emptied. The roots of violence were sown earlier. The interpretations given by the Hindu Nationalist camp is that the riot is due to the changing demographic profile of the area with Muslims increasing in number in those areas, and coming up of Shaheen Bagh which was presented was like ‘Mini Pakistan’. As per them the policies of BJP in matters of triple talaq, Article 370 and CAA, NPR, NRC has unnerved the ‘radical’ elements and so this violence.

As such before coming to the observations of the activists and scholars of communal violence in India, we can in brief say that violence, in which nearly 46 people have died, include one from police and another from intelligence. Majority victims are Muslims. The violence started right under the nose of the police and the ruling party. From the videos and other eye accounts, police not only looked the other way around, at places it assisted those attacking the innocent victims and burning and looting selective shops. Home minister, Amit Shah, was nowhere on the scene. For first three days the rioters had free run. After the paramilitary force was brought in; the violence simmered and slowly reduced in intensity. The state AAP Government, which in a way is the byproduct of RSS supported Anna Hazare movement, was busy reading Hanuman Chalisa and praying at Rajghat with eyes closed to the mayhem going in parts of Delhi.

Communal violence is the sore point of Indian society. It did begin during colonial period due to British policy of ‘Divide and Rule’. At root cause was the communal view of looking at history and pro active British acts to sow the seeds of Hindu-Muslim divide. At other level the administrative and police the British were fairly neutral. On one hand was the national movement, uniting the people and creating and strengthening the fraternal feeling among all Indians. On the other were Muslim Communalists (Muslim League) and Hindu Communalists (Hindu Mahasabha, RSS) who assisted the British goal of ‘divide and rule’ promoting hatred between the communities. After partition the first major change was the change in attitude of police and administration which started tilting against Muslims. Major studies by Dr. Asghar Ali Engineer, Paul Brass and Omar Khalidi demonstrated that anti Muslim bias is discernible in during and after the riots.

Now the partisan role of police has been visible all through. Sri Krishna Commission report brought forth this fact; as did the research of the Ex DIG of UP police Dr. V.N.Rai. Dr. Rai’s studies also concluded that no communal violence can go on beyond 24 hours unless state administration is complicit in the carnage. In one of the violence, investigation of which was done by concerned Citizen’s team (Dhule, 2013) this author observed that police itself went on to undertake the rampage against Muslims and Muslim properties.

General observation about riots is that violence sounds to be spontaneous, as the Home Minister is pointing out, but as such it is well planned act. Again the violence is orchestrated in such a way that it seems Muslims have begun the riots. Who casts the First stone? To this scholars point out that the carnage is so organized that the encircled community is forced to throw the first stone. At places the pretext is made that ‘they’ (minorities) have thrown the first stone.

The pretexts against minorities are propagated, in Gujarat violence Godhra train burning, in Kandhamal the murder of Swami Laxamannand and now Shaheen bagh! The Hindu Muslim violence began as riots. But it is no more a riot, two sides are not involved. It is plain and simple anti Minority violence, in which some from the majority are also the victims.

This violence is possible as the ‘Hate against this minority’ is now more or less structural. The deeper Hate against Muslims and partly against Christians; has been cultivated since long and Hindu nationalist politics, right from its Shakhas to the social media have been put to use for spreading Hatred. The prevalent deeper hate has been supplanted this time by multiple utterances from BJP leaders, Modi (Can be recognized by clothes), Shah (press EVM machine button so hard that current is felt in Shaheen Bagh), Anurag Thakur (Goli (bullet) Maro) Yogi Aditya Nath (If Boli (Words)Do not work Goli will) and Parvesh Varma (They will be out to rape).

The incidental observation of the whole tragedy is the coming to surface of true colors of AAP, which not only kept mum as the carnage was peaking but also went on to praise the role of police in the whole episode. With Delhi carnage “Goli Maro” seems to be becoming the central slogan of Hindu nationalists. Delhi’s this violence has been the first one in which those getting killed are more due to bullets than by swords or knifes! Leader’s slogans do not go in vain! Courts the protectors of our Constitution seem to be of little help as if one of them like Murlidhar Rao gives the verdict to file against hate mongers, he is immediately transferred.

And lastly let’s recall the academic study of Yale University. It concludes; BJP gains in electoral strength after every riot’. In India the grip of communalism is increasing frighteningly. Efforts are needed to combat Hate and Hate mongers.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
March 29,2020

Bengaluru, Mar 29: Seven new COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Karnataka since Saturday 5 pm to 2 pm on Sunday.

The total number of positive cases in the state stands at 83, out of which five have been cured/discharged and three have lost their lives, according to the Karnataka Health Department.

A total of 979 confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been reported in India, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
coastaldigest.com news network
July 21,2020

Mangaluru, Jul 21: Muslims in coastal Karnataka will celebrate the Eid al-Adha on July 31, confirmed Islamic

Twaka Ahmed Musliyar, Qadhi of Managluru, has made this announcement following the crescent moon sighting in region. 

Today was the last day of Dhu al Qaeda and tomorrow (Wednesday, July 22) will be the first day of the month Dhu al Hijja.

The Eid al Adha always falls on the 10th day of Dhu al Hijja.

In most of the middle eastern countries including Saudi Arabia too Eid will be celebrated on the same day.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.