Sept. 23: The external affairs ministry has decided to set up a passport seva kendra in Siliguri and asked the Bengal chief secretary to allocate a site for the building.

Union foreign minister Sushma Swaraj, in a letter to Darjeeling MP S.S. Ahluwalia, has said: “I am happy to inform you that the ministry has decided to establish a new PSK (passport seva kendra) in Siliguri. The ministry is in touch with the chief secretary of the government of West Bengal for allotment of a suitable site for the PSK. We will keep you informed of the progress.”

Swaraj was responding to a letter written by Ahluwalia on August 7, requesting that the Centre set up a passport seva kendra in Siliguri.

A passport centre had been set up in Siliguri on May 12, 2000, and it used to issue passport forms, receive applications and send them to the regional passport office in Calcutta for processing. But the office stopped functioning in 2013. The applicants from north Bengal and Sikkim were requested to submit the application forms either in kendras in Behrampore or Calcutta.

North Bengal development minister Gautam Deb, when told about the decision to open a kendra in Siliguri, said it was the chief minister’s initiative.