There is good news for passport seekers as the state government is contemplating reducing the police verification time for getting a passport.
The delay in the police verification is touted as the major cause for the delay in issuance of passports in the conflict-hit region where hundreds of people have been blacklisted by the intelligence agencies and are not being issued passports.
In Kashmir, getting a passport over the years has been painful as most of the passport seekers are stuck in getting police verification reports and it usually takes more than two to three months to get it done.
Firdous Iqbal of the passport office in Srinagar said the Regional Passport Office (RPO) had already gone online to reduce the process of verification.
“To reduce time in police verification, the passport office has already offered online personal particulars form. Now efforts are on to reduce the time taken in verification. A high-level meeting has been already conducted in this regard,” Iqbal said.
The police are in fact, required to complete the police verification report (PVR) within 21 days and the Ministry of External Affairs pays Rs 150 for each application. For PVR completed after the stipulated time, the amount paid to police decreases with each additional day.
The J&K police claim that it has also cut down certain procedures that were earlier required for completing the verification for getting passports. In 2015, a record of 70,000 passports was issued in the region by the passport office.
J&K mulls reducing police verification time
