Tatkal Passport in 3 days with 3 Passport Seva Kendras in Hyderabad now

One of the other best initiative from the Government of India is that it has set up three (3) Passport Seva Kendras in Hyderabad itself and in total 77 PSKs across the country! Please read the below article from The New Indian Express, it's an official announcement!

HYDERABAD: To discourage mediators’ involvement and provide timely services in a transparent manner, the Regional Passport Office here has set up Passport Seva Kendras in the twin cities and at Vijayawada, Tirupati and Nizamabad.

Speaking to mediamen here on Tuesday, regional passport officer K Srikar Reddy said the Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) would function shortly. The state capital will have three kendras, one each at Ameerpet, Tolichowki and Begumpet. These will be functioning from November 25.

“Applicants need not stand in long queues and wait endlessly in front of the Regional Passport Office in Secunderabad to submit applications. They can visit passport office’s website and book a slot.

After being assigned the application number, the applicants can approach the nearest PSK and submit their bona-fidess. We will issue normal passport in 30 days and Tatkal passport in three days,’’ he said.

Reddy said the passport department launched 77 PSKs across the country in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in private-public partnership mode. TCS will assist the passport department through outsourcing in issuing passports in a jiffy. The department will get police enquiry details online. “As many as 2,000 passports a day will be issued to applicants through the PSKs in the twin cities. The new initiative will help us in preventing private agents’ involvement.’’

The RPO said that they would set up one passport centre at each district headquarters to deliver passport-related services in a timely, transparent, more accessible and reliable manner and in a comfortable environment through streamlined processes and committed, trained and motivated work force.

With fake passport cases being reported in the twin cities, he said, they identified as many as 100 applicants and sent their documents to the Election Commission for verification. As of now, they received the report that 10 of the applicants submitted fake proofs and they asked the city police for necessary action against them.

For more details and to apply for a passport online, one can visit http://www.ap.nic.in/passport

Hyderabad | Posted on Nov 23, 2011 at 09:17am IST

Source: Express News Service , The New Indian Express
Click on Read More for Hindu Article, which has more information.

The newly established Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) at Chirag Ali Lane, Begumpet will be operational from Friday although applicants can start availing appointments from Monday onwards.

The usual practice of giving tokens for appointments with passport officers has been done away with. Now, the public can submit passport application through the website www.passportindia.gov.in and get an appointment with the PSK.

Passport officials while interacting with press persons on Tuesday said that applicants will be given appointment after two or three days from the day of submitting the online application. “Applicants will get an application reference number of the online form. Along with this number, they also have to bring all required documents for verification to the PSK at the appointed date. Ideally, the applicant should be able to get the passport within 30 days through PSK,” Regional Passport Officer (RPO), Hyderabad, K. Srikar Reddy.

Police verification will be completed in two-weeks, officials said. “In the earlier system, it used to take four weeks for police to verify because we used to send files of the applicants by post. Now, only electronic files will be sent directly from the passport office to the police headquarters. Police will verify and feed the information directly into the system and send it back to us. This will save time,” Mr. Srikar Reddy explained.

Passport authorities said that two more PSKs, one at Ameerpet and another at Tolichowki will also be opened up. The RPO, however, warned public not to expect miracles immediately. “Public should have patience. It will at least take two-months for everybody to get used to the new system,” he added.

Based on the appointment, when applicants enter a PSK, first they will get an appointment with Citizen Service Executive (CSE). The CSE will take picture and fingerprints of the applicants, upload necessary data into the database and verify documents.

After meeting the CSE, applicants will have to go to Verification Officers, where another round of verification of the documents will be taken up. After meeting the verification officers, applicants will be guided to Granting Officers (GO) who have the authority to grant or deny the passport. The final stage is waiting for verification from police before passports are dispatched. Ideally, the new system will help applicants get passports within 30 days.

Source: The Hindu, HYDERABAD, November 23, 2011

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/article2650967.ece