Regional passport officer Anand Kumar in Patna on Wednesday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

The passport application collection centre at Darbhanga would be developed as a mini Passport Seva Kendra to serve people residing in the Mithilanchal region.

“It is likely that the Darbhanga passport office would start functioning as a mini seva kendra by the end of this financial year,” regional passport officer Anand Kumar said on Wednesday.

Once the Darbhanga office becomes a seva kendra, passport applicants would not have to come down to Patna to submit their applications and also go through the necessary checks because passports would be issued from the Darbhanga office itself.

Imam Ali, an applicant from Gopalganj district, said: “It is good that the ministry of external affairs is planning to develop Darbhanga as a small seva kendra. It would be of great convenience to people of the Mithilanchal region.”

To speed up the police verification process, the digital signature system would be started in nine districts. At present, it is being practised in 11 districts.

Patna, Banka, Kishanganj, Bhojpur, Bhagalpur, Aurangabad and Nalanda are some of the districts, which have the digital signature facility. Anand Kumar said: “The digital signature concept fast tracks the police verification process.”

Now, police verifications are done in a day or two. Earlier, it took at least four days.

The regional passport officer added that after the introduction of the digital signature system, police verifications are carried out on time and the seva Kendra in Patna is issuing passports in less than a week.