People of north Bihar will not have to visit Patna to apply for passports or to renew their old ones by end-March.

Thanks to the central government, five new Passport Seva Kendras (PSK) are being opened at the head post offices in Purnea, Bhagalpur, Muzaffarpur, Gopalganj and Siwan. They are a part of 56 such centres scheduled to be opened across the country following an announcement by Union finance minister Arun Jaitley in his budget speech to help people wishing to travel abroad for work or leisure.

At present, full-fledged passport services are provided in Patna and partly in Darbhanga, where a PSK is operational.

Regional passport officer (RPO) Shatrughan Sinha told The Telegraph: "We are making all efforts to make all five new centres operational by end-March. It will cut down the need for people to visit Patna to submit their applications, biometric details and verification of documents. It will help save their time and money. Our intention is to take passport services to the people."

Shatrughan visited Muzaffarpur on Tuesday to inspect the site, where PSK will be opened and said the department of posts was giving space in all the five cities for the purpose.

Director of postal services (Bihar headquarters) Adnan Ahmed told The Telegraph: "Right now, the facilities will be started at head post offices in camp mode. Officials from the ministry of external affairs will be present. We will give space for PSKs, while MEA officials will install computers and biometric gadgets among other things. Later, some of our people will do basic work such as verification of documents."

Asked about the criteria on which the five cities in Bihar had been selected, the official said the ministry of external affairs took the decision, with directions that they be opened as soon as possible. But he pointed out that Siwan topped among all 38 districts in the state in the number of passport applications during the 2016 calendar year, while Gopalganj was at the top spot in 2015.

The RPO, however, was clueless why the new PSKs were being opened in north Bihar while the 15 districts in south Bihar did not get any.

Around 3 lakh passports were issued in Bihar in 2016 as against 3.6 lakh in 2015 after many countries started demanding emigration check not required (ECNR) passports that are issued only to those educated till Calass X or above. But a 30-35 per cent jump has been seen in applications in 2017 after passport rules were liberalised on December 26 last year.