Applicants make beeline at passport sewa kendras in Jalandhar

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 20

Even as several airlines have shut their operations and many countries have stopped issuing visas, Doaba residents continue to make a beeline at passport sewa kendras here.

Even today 1,000 applicants turned up at three passport sewa kendras in the city. This despite a fact that Regional Passport Officer (RPO) Raj Kumar Bali had yesterday issued an advisory to the applicants to get their appointments rescheduled in the wake of coronavirus spread.

The passport staff had reportedly even got messages sent to the registered applicants to postpone their appointments. Many of them had even been called up on their registered contact numbers requesting them to put off their visit. But no such step came as a deterrent for the applicants.

As hundreds queued up yet again today, RPO Bali visited a sewa kendra to make a personal request to the applicants to go back home and come some days later as situation would improve. “I told them that if they would go back, it would be good for them as well as the staff as they would otherwise be more prone to coronavirus infection. I even tried to convince them that there was no point applying these days as all travel facilities were lying shut. Further, I told them that they could avail infinite number of appointments for passport application and their files would not be affected even if they skipped appointments. Despite clarifying so much, only two applicants in queue went back while the rest all stood quietly and got their work done today itself”, the RPO said.

Even the police staff at the office told the applicants that the police verification could take time these days as even the cops were deployed in surveillance of those who had come to India from coronavirus-affected countries.

Shreya Jain, who had come for passport application of her daughter, said, “This was the most suitable time that I could apply for her passport as her school was off. So, I could bring her along easily. We are wearing masks. So it will not be much of a problem”.