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To meet the growing demand for passports and to reduce the time for appointment availability, the Pune Regional Passport Office (RPO) has decided to keep all Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) and Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSK) open on the next three Saturdays – 15th and 22nd July and Aug 5th.
To take advantage of this move, applicants can book new appointments or reschedule their booked appointments in both the regular and the takkal categories, said Dr. Arjun Dior, Regional Passport Officer, Pune.
Last year, in the first six months (January to June), Pune RPO distributed 1,63,105 passports. This year, 2,19,647 passports have been issued in the same period so far. This means that in the same period we issued 56,542 additional passports. “It’s a 35 percent jump,” said Dr. Dior.
During 2020, the year of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a sharp decline in the issuance of passports due to the closure of passport offices for several months as well as the travel restrictions imposed by several countries. That year, only 1,65,185 applications were submitted to the Pune RPO, of which 1,61,295 passports were issued. This was a significant decrease from the 4,17,769 passports issued in 2019.
However, as of 2021, demand and issuance of passports are starting to rise again. In 2021, the office issued 2,31,334 passports and 3,44,447 passports in the next year.
Dior said it sought to streamline processes in order to reduce multiple applicant visits and missed appointments and increase the ratio of applications to appointments.
Currently, applicants are getting multiple opportunities to apply and closer to the appointments, many appointments are rescheduled, thus wasting the chances of real applicants to apply. “Only about 60 percent of the applicants in Tatkal and 80 percent of the normal applicants can apply on the first date because the rest of the applicants have application gaps,” said Dury.
Among the shortcomings of the applications are the lack of valid and original documents, mismatch of details such as name, date of birth and parents’ names in all supporting documents or submission in ineligible categories.
He said the number of daily passport appointments (for the entire RPO Pune area) has risen to around 2,500 and the offices are running on weekends as well as needed. A camp style office has also been opened at RPO, Baner. Every day, 1250 submission slots are issued in Pune Passport Seva Kendra under ‘Normal’ category and 150 under tatkal scheme.
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