The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Passport Office to be shifted

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Thursday, Oct 01, 2009
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Passport Office to be shifted

P. Oppili

Front office work will soon be outsourced

CHENNAI: The Regional Passport Office in Chennai will soon move to its own premises at Rayala Towers, Anna Salai.

The new office will have a built-up area of 16,700 sq ft. There was some litigation in the property that had been sorted out, sources in the passport office said. However, the existing office in Shastri Bhavan in Nungambakkam will continue to be used by the Ministry of External Affairs.

The front office work at the Passport Office will soon be outsourced. It would include collection of fresh passport applications, verifying the data, taking photographs of applicants and sending details to the police for verification through online system. Initially the new system will be introduced on a trial basis under ‘Passport Seva Project’ in Bangalore and Chandigarh.

In Chennai the outsourcing is expected to be introduced in April next year, the sources said. The private agency entrusted with the task to handle the work would set up an office each in south, north and central Chennai to collect fresh passport applications.

Outsourcing of the front office work is expected to reduce congestion. At the same time it would benefit fresh applicants as they need not come to the passport office for submitting the application. Under the existing system, it takes 3 to 4 hours for submitting fresh applications. With the introduction of the new system, submission of fresh passport applications could be completed in an hour, the sources said. Works such as issuing of duplicate passports, diplomatic passports would be handled by the Passport authorities themselves, they added.

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