Government Responds To Pendency Of Passport Issuance In Lok Sabha (image-pixabay)

Jasbir Singh Gill, Congress MP from Punjab during the Lok Sabha session enquired about the waiting period of passports and its pendency on Friday. The question was addressed to the external affairs minister S Jaishanakar. The average time taken for the issuance of passport is 7 to 10 days for normal passports excluding the police verification, the government stated.

The minister also quizzed about the huge pendency of issuance of passports in Punjab and the measures taken up by the government to tackle the issue. The Tatkaal passports are issued within a time span of 1-3 days, Jaishankar informed in written reply.

The government stated that the delay of the issuance is due to the police verification procedure which takes almost 14 days to complete. In order to overcome this time delay, the government has launched mPassport Police App which has reduced the duration to just 5 days and this app has also been launched in Punjab.

The Central government admitted in the Lok Sabha that the backlog of passports in Punjab is caused by the covid pandemic. The Ministry of External Affairs said some of the measures to address this issue includes opening of Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs)/ Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSKs) on Saturdays, creating additional passport processing counters (Camp PSKs) at Passport Offices, deploying mobile vans for attending to the passport applicants, and releasing additional appointments daily. Deployment of additional personnel and cross-granting practices have also been used to expedite passport issuance.

Earlier, this question was raised in the parliament during the monsoon session by Jasbir Singh Gill and Gurjeet Singh Aujla to which the centre replied the same.