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Bhubaneswar, Sept. 5: Passport management system (PMS), a new software, has been installed at the regional passport office here to ensure expeditious issue and despatch of passports.
Regional passport officer Padma Mohanty said that an electronic token display system, visitor management system and a 24-hour electronic surveillance system were installed to avoid unnecessary queues, and to reduce waiting time by ensuring tighter security to minimise interference of brokers and touts.
To help villagers and illiterate people, who constitute about 60 per cent of visitors to the passport office, a helpdesk manned by ex-servicemen has been set up to facilitate online registration, said Mohanty.
He has also taken decisions on issuing error-free passports expeditiously. The office will accept only online registered applications from Monday both for normal and tatkal category applicants. The office will have a single-visit scheme in which all processes are completed, objections except the Passport Act violations are rectified and applicants given grant order or objection letter on the same day. This will ensure 100 per cent objection-less office status.
The applicants can know status of their applications by sending an SMS. It has also decided to give the actual speed-post registration number directly to the applicants by an SMS and on www.passport.gov.in.
The office also conducts a database check to see if the person is involved in anti-national activities and refused passport by other offices anywhere in India, said assistant passport officer B.C. Pradhan.
About 500 people visit the office everyday and nearly 4,000 to 5,000 passports are issued every month.