The Hindu : Front Page : Passport office reaches out to students

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Jul 29, 2007
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Passport office reaches out to students

S. Ganesan

Hassle-free: Students filing their passport applications online at their institution in Tiruchi on Saturday.

TIRUCHI: The Regional Passport Office here has decided to conduct special camps at colleges to encourage students to file passport applications online.

The first such programme conducted at the Saranathan College of Engineering here on Saturday drew an overwhelming response with nearly 500 students and staff of the institution filing their applications online. About eight staff members from the Passport Office led by the Regional Passport Officer S.Balachandran and R.Shivakumar, Director, National Informatics Centre (NIC) assisted the candidates in filing the applications.“We are ready to conduct similar camps in other recognised institutions, if the requests come from the managements,” Mr. Balachandran told The Hindu. Verification of certificates was done by the Passport Office employees on the spot and the prescribed fee for the service was collected by way of deman d drafts. The receipts / acknowledgements would be distributed through the college management itself.

Though similar camps were conducted previously, this is the first time that a camp has been organised for online filing of application. Previously, applications were collected only from final-year students, there will be no restrictions now.

“The system brings about a hassle-free way of filing applications, reduces the congestion at the Passport Office and also minimises the possibilities of errors as all particulars are uploaded into the system directly by the applicants,” Mr. Balachandran said.

The Passport Officer also supervised an orientation session for officials of the District Passport Cells through video conferencing on Saturday. Officials from Madurai, Dindigul, Tirunelveli, Kanyakumari and Sivaganga were briefed on procedures to be adopted while accepting applications.

The orientation sessions were organised as several applications forwarded through DPCs were found to be incomplete. With this, officials in DPCs in all the 15 districts (except Tiruchi) have been provided adequate training on the verification process.

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