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The Minister of State for External Affairs, Shri E. Ahamed told the Rajya Sabha today that there are several reasons for delays in issuance of passports. These include: Delays in receipt of Police Verification Reports (PVRs) and adverse/incomplete PVRs, incomplete information and/or documents furnished by the applicants.
Shri Ahmed further informed that the Government have taken various steps to speed up the issuance of passports (I) proper scrutiny of the application form and the enclosed documents at the stage of submission of applications to avoid objections at later stages (ii) regular interaction with the police authorities to speed up police verification reports (iii) setting up of facilitation counters in several passport offices (iv) opening of District Passport Cells in various districts in almost all the States with a view to bring the passport services closer to the applicants and (v) On-line registration of passport applications in several Passport Offices.
Shri Ahmed informed that MEA launched a pendency clearance drive in several offices viz. Delhi, Ghaziabad, Jaipur, Kozhikode, Patna and Trivandrum in Feb-Apr 2005. In Passport Office Delhi alone, more than 35,000 applications were cleared in approximately two weeks, he added.
The information was given by Shri Ahmed in reply to a question by Smt. Prema Cariappa, Shri R.K. Anand and Shri S.P.M. Syed Khan.
AK/SK/JA
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