Bhubaneswar: In an effort to deliver early submission of police verification reports (PVR) about passport aspirants through a mobile application, the passport office in the state will shortly provide tablets to concerned field-level police officers.
The ‘M-passport police’ App will expedite the verification process, which in normal course takes about 15 days or more to complete passport verification process. The new App has been successfully implemented in Tamil Nadu and Haryana where it was launched earlier.
Traditionally, the Bhubaneswar passport office has been sending all passport applications to district superintendents of police and deputy commissioners’ office to verify the antecedents and citizenship details of the applicant online. It is then sent to the respective police stations for verification manually. The field level officers, in turn, send the PVRs to the DCP or SP office manually. The applications are duly scrutinised by the district intelligence bureaux. The process has been taking around a month. The ‘Mpassport Police’ initiative, once implemented, will further ease the cumbersome process and reduce the time. Sources in the passport office revealed that the scheme is being implemented in Odisha on a trial basis. Probably, it is expected to be launched in December, they said.
Initially, police officers in five major cities of the state –Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Rourkela, Berhampur and Sambalpur – will be provided with the tablets. They will be trained in the use of the M-passport App. Subsequently, it will be extended to other areas of the state after assessing the effectiveness of the App.
Another source in the passport office revealed that the launch of the programme was delayed in Odisha due to the disagreement between the state and the Centre over who would bear the cost of the gadgets. However, the source claimed that it will be resolved soon and the initiative will be launched before the general elections in 2019.
Speaking to Orissa POST, Director General of Police RP Sharma said, use of mobile app will definitely reduce delays and will naturally be convenient for the citizens. “We have a system of uploading documents online. Currently, the police officials have been submitting reports in a time-bound manner. I think the launch of the application will lead to greater convenience of the applicants or the citizens. I don’t think it will have any adverse impact as the DIB office will be overseeing the procedure.”
Similarly, sub-inspector Durga Charan Mohapatra who was in charge of passport cell of Capital Police station said, “direct submission of PVR will reduce man-power pressure in our department. The applicants will also get their passports at the earliest.”
