The Hindu : National : Machine-readable ‘jumbo passport’ released

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Sunday, Jul 22, 2007
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National

Machine-readable ‘jumbo passport’ released

Divya Gandhi

Bangalore: With the country’s rising international profile, the number of Indians travelling abroad has grown phenomenally in recent years, and so has the number of passports being issued every year, said Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed here on Saturday.

Releasing the first “jumbo machine-readable passport,” he said the new machine-printed passport, with 64 pages, would help both the Regional Passport Offices (RPOs) and frequent travellers.

On the growing pressure on the Bangalore RPO, especially as the city develops as an IT hub, he said the office also had to cope with providing services to the entire State. “The number of passport services rendered in 2006 was 3.1 lakh, an increase of more than 40 per cent from 2005.”

Member of Parliament Anant Kumar said that Bangalore had emerged as the knowledge capital of the country and as an international gateway.

The machine-readable passports would help process thousands of applications that the Bangalore regional passport office received.

N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chief Mentor, Infosys Technologies, said the new passport with additional pages was essential for the Information Technology sector as many companies had regular interactions with countries abroad.

The new passport will be available at the offices in Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.

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