MEA to issue passports without police report if not filed in 21 days

Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, July 7

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To accelerate the delivery of passports and avoid delays, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) will ensure issuance of passports to applicants whose Police Verification Reports (PVRs) have not been submitted within the stipulated period of 21 days.

The police authorities who fail to submit the PVRs within 21 days will also no longer be entitled to the PVR disbursement fee—which is Rs 150 per applicant.  

Nawanshahr fastest, Amritsar among slowest in filing PVRs   

In Punjab, a large number of applicants were allegedly getting their passports after long delays because the PVRs were not being filed by the police in border districts like Amritsar and Ferozepur. 

Even in Chandigarh the police were allegedly surpassing the 21-day timeframe.

However, the PVRs were being filed on time in the Jalandhar RPO. 

“The current average PVR submission time at the Jalandhar RPO—which includes the districts of Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur, Nawanshahr and Moga—is within 14 days,” said Harmanbir Singh, Regional Passport Officer, Jalandhar RPO.

Within these districts, Nawanshahr has been adjudged the ‘best performer’ where the police were taking an average of eight to nine days for PVR submission whereas the ‘worst performer’ was Moga where PVRs were filed in 18 to 19 days.

Singh has shot off a letter to the Director General of Police (DGP) and DGP (Intelligence) pinpointing the performance of districts and seeking the speeding up of the verification process. 

“We are striving to ensure compliance of the MEA plan in totality,” said Singh.

Punjab Police have already received a fee of more than Rs 8 crore for submitting PVRs within the 21-day deadline. The amount has been diverted to the Police Housing Corporation and for other welfare activities.

Earlier, the MEA had given a period of 30 days beginning January 10 to the police for clearance of PVRs for the applications that had been submitted on or before December 31, 2018.

In case PVRs were not submitted before February, they were deemed ‘adverse’ in nature.

The MEA authorities, sources pointed out, had observed that in many cases applicants did not visit the Passport Sewa Kendras (PSKs) or the Passport Back Offices (PBOs) to submit additional documents which is another cause of pendency.

Telangana, Andhra most efficient 

There are 38 Regional Passport Offices (RPOs) across the country. 

In Telangana and Andhra Pradesh the police take an average of three days to file PVRs and have been rewarded by the Centre for their efficiency. 

However, in Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and parts of Himachal Pradesh thousands of PVRs remain pending ranging from a period of one month to over a year.

Due to this, applicants have been suffering even as the Central government has been trying to liberalise the issuance of the travel document.