The road to getting a passport in hand in Karnataka has got shorter. While the appointment cycle for passport services (both normal and tatkal) had come down to one day across the State, the ‘turn around time’ (TAT) at the four Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) and the Passport Application Processing Centre, Kalaburagi is now down to an average of 60 minutes from 120 minutes. This is further down to 40 minutes in the PSKs at Bengaluru.
TAT is the time spent at the PSK to complete all the procedures.
Bengaluru Regional Passport Officer P.S. Karthigeyan on Friday said that halving the TAT across the State in the last three months was the result of the ‘liberalisation of the document protocol as well as rigorous training for the PSK staff’. However, he reiterated that there is no dilution in the process on the whole.
“Aadhaar details have been integrated into our database. Likewise, details of voter identity cards as well as PAN cards may also be integrated soon. Even the tatkal application process has been liberalised while the number of applications under tatkal has come down,” he said at a press conference. The 27 passport mela organised in the State - the highest in the country last year - also contributed to the reduction in duration, he added.
The ‘mPassport Police App’, which has been expanded to cover all 107 police stations in Bengaluru, is said to have brought down the duration of one of the most crucial steps in the entire process - police verification - to 13 days in September against the State average of 25 days. Bengaluru accounts for over 40 percent of the total volume of police verification requests for passport services.
But Mr. Karthigeyan said this number could be reduced further to seven days and the 13-day window in September was because the police had too much on their hands.
TAT is the time spent at the PSK to complete all the procedures.
Bengaluru Regional Passport Officer P.S. Karthigeyan on Friday said that halving the TAT across the State in the last three months was the result of the ‘liberalisation of the document protocol as well as rigorous training for the PSK staff’. However, he reiterated that there is no dilution in the process on the whole.
“Aadhaar details have been integrated into our database. Likewise, details of voter identity cards as well as PAN cards may also be integrated soon. Even the tatkal application process has been liberalised while the number of applications under tatkal has come down,” he said at a press conference. The 27 passport mela organised in the State - the highest in the country last year - also contributed to the reduction in duration, he added.
The ‘mPassport Police App’, which has been expanded to cover all 107 police stations in Bengaluru, is said to have brought down the duration of one of the most crucial steps in the entire process - police verification - to 13 days in September against the State average of 25 days. Bengaluru accounts for over 40 percent of the total volume of police verification requests for passport services.
But Mr. Karthigeyan said this number could be reduced further to seven days and the 13-day window in September was because the police had too much on their hands.