Around 21,000 passport applications are currently awaiting police verification in Calcutta, a backlog that continues to grow and defeat the purpose of using technology to speed up the process.
According to data available with the ministry of external affairs, the pile of pending applications has grown almost 8 per cent over the past three months. "In May, the number of applications pending verification was 19,505. By the end of the third week of August, the backlog had reached 21,000," a senior official said.
Several applicants told Metro that they cleared their Passport Seva Kendra interviews up to two months ago but were still waiting for word from the police.
"I had thought they would contact me, but it's been five weeks already and I haven't heard from anyone. Should I go to Lalbazar to get myself verified?" asked M. Bhattacharya, an elderly resident of Kasba who cleared her interview on July 14.
Another applicant, a resident of Maniktala who didn't wish to be named, had approached a bureaucrat known to her to put in a word after learning that her file was at the security control office (SCO). And this after four weeks of her application being forwarded to the police for the final stage of verification.
Senior officers in the SCO denied this was a problem and also offered an alternative: if the police don't go to you, you go to them. "There is no delay as such. We believe in quality service. Instead of hurrying through the process, we focus on doing the work properly," said joint commissioner (intelligence) Dilip Banerjee.
Banerjee, who heads the intelligence wing of city police, is in charge of passport-related verification by the SCO.
Asked why many applicants weren't being contacted even weeks after the passport office clearing them for police verification, Banerjee said: "If anyone thinks verification isn't being done on time, he or she is most welcome to approach us at the security control office."
Any such option is, of course, in violation of the rules fixed by the ministry of external affairs for police verification of a passport applicant's address and personal particulars.
The police are required to physically verify the address declared by the applicant along with other details, including identity, nationality and criminal precedents, if any.
"If an officer doesn't visit the address, how would he verify if the address declared by the applicant is correct. Calling the applicant to the police station might save time but this practice could lead to incomplete verification," said Golok Kumar Simli, head of technology for the Passport Seva project under the ministry of external affairs.
The proposal for a shortcut to police verification comes at a time when the technology wing of the ministry is preparing to introduce GPS-enabled tabs for passport verification officers to check if they are visiting the addresses of applicants for verification.
Once an applicant is declared eligible for a passport at the Passport Seva Kendra, the file is forwarded online to the police agency under whose jurisdiction the particular address is. In Bengal, a large number of applicants are asked to visit either the local police station (in case of Bengal police) or the SCO in areas under the jurisdiction of city police.
Although senior officers in the SCO refused to admit that this was a problem, those in the field said a sudden increase in the number of applications in Calcutta was the reason behind the mountain of pending applications.
An IPS officer who isn't attached to the SCO blamed "a structural lapse" for the absence of a monitoring officer without additional responsibilities. "Unlike before, there is no deputy commissioner or joint commissioner solely in charge of the SCO. Now the SCO is being looked after by an officer who is also in charge of the Special Branch," he said.
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