More than one lakh passport applications in Bengal are awaiting police verification, the highest after Maharashtra, sources in the ministry of external affairs said.

According to records available with the ministry, the number crossed 1.04 lakh in the last week of August. Of these one lakh-odd applications, 21,000 are pending in Calcutta alone. The percentage is also high in districts like Murshidabad, East Midnapore, Burdwan and North 24-Parganas.

"Considering the volume of applications and the percentage of passports being issued, Maharashtra has the maximum number of police reports pending, followed by Bengal. The other states with huge backlogs are Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar and Assam," said an official of the external affairs ministry in Delhi.

Senior officers of the state intelligence branch of Bengal police, which is responsible for verification of passport applicants, cited lack of manpower for the growing backlog.

"The district intelligence branch is short of manpower in most districts, which is the prime reason for such a high number of pending cases," director-general of police (intelligence branch) Banibrata Basu said.

Metro spoke to senior police officers in Delhi, one of the top three states when it comes to speedy completion of police verification for passports, to find out what they do that Bengal can't.

"We have one officer in each of the 181 police stations across Delhi for passport verification. We are now able to complete the process in 15 days. We hope to reduce this period further by equipping our verification officers with tablets to enable them to file a report even before leaving an applicant's home," Balaji Srivastava, special commissioner of Delhi police's intelligence branch, told Metro over phone.

Srivastava said Delhi police had been making use of the incentive offered by the external affairs ministry for completing police verification procedures within the stipulated timeframe of three weeks. "We use that fund to buy scooters and mobile phones for our verifying officers so that they don't have to spend from their pockets on official assignments. We want them to deliver the best possible service to the passport applicants."

The ministry offers Rs 100 for each police verification completed within three weeks.

This isn't the first time that Bengal is at the bottom. In March last year, the state had the maximum number of police verification reports pending.

"It's been two months since my application was sanctioned at the Passport Seva Kendra. Nobody from the police department has contacted me for verification," said a senior citizen living in Kasba.

Another applicant had approached the security control office to get his credentials verified and was referred to the local police station in Netaji Nagar.

"Since nobody from the police contacted me, I went to the security control office. They were surprised to see me. When I said that I had read in Metro that an applicant needs to go to the security control office if the police don't contact him, they gave me the phone numbers of two officers of my local police station. When I contacted them, they asked me to call back after September 20," the applicant said.

The passport rule-book states that the police should approach the applicants to verify their particulars and not vice versa.