The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Bio-metric passports soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Dec 21, 2007
ePaper

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Bio-metric passports soon

Suresh Krishnamoorthy

Security features to filter out dubious applicants

Passport rules not complicated as feared by many
Documents in support of identity, domicile necessary

HYDERABAD: Very soon, bio-metric options will be used in passports — a fingerprint and impression of the entire palm, apart from a snapshot of the ‘iris’ of the eye.

Pilot project

When the new passport policy is announced, Andhra Pradesh will implement a pilot project in outsourcing a variety of services that go in the ultimate issue of a passport, most likely in March 2008. Once it succeeds in Andhra Pradesh, it will be extended to the rest of India.

These are among several security features to be incorporated into the process of issuing passports, considering the several cases of people with dubious credentials, including those from the underworld, managing to get passports. Tenders have been called for installation of the equipment for preparing the biometric passports.

Regional Passport Officer B. Bala Bhaskar said the volume of passports issued from his office was growing phenomenally.

In 2005, the Regional Passport Office here distributed 2.70 lakh passports and the number has grown to over 4.20 lakh from January this year.

He said his office was making every effort to reduce the rush of people, improve operational efficiency and eliminate touts by outsourcing to various other government agencies the process of submitting applications.

Today, passport applications could be submitted at about 100 authorised post offices, apart from the offices of Superintendents of Police in every district and in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. In additions, there were about 500 registrations/submissions online every day on www.ap.nic.in/passport, he said.

Tatkal scheme

Mr. Bala Bhaskar said the passport rules were not as complicated as many applicants feared. The passport authorities primarily sought documents to support the identity and domicile of the applicants. If these were in order, the RPO could deliver a passport under the Tatkal scheme in just five days.

Under these scheme, three out of the 14 documents were to convince the issuing authority. RPO, Hyderabad, was the only office in the country that has a timeframe for service delivery, he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh

News Update

Stories in this Section