Passport applications to go online from Aug 26

AHMEDABAD: Regional Passport Office (RPO) has decided to throw open the on-line application facility to individual applicants. The scheme is due for a launch on August 26.
On-line services of RPO, Ahmedabad which was scheduled for a launch in the first week of August, was deferred due to the delay in taking a decision on whether to allow individual applicants to use the facility.
"There was a slight confusion over whether we should launch the site solely for agents or for the general public too," says B B Swain, Regional Passport Officer, Ahmedabad adding that 50 per cent of application received by them are through agents.
He said that by August 26 the site would be operational and anybody can post applications on-line. "We are ready for a take off as half of the software designing job is over," adds Swain.
Ahmedabad RPO had decided to go on-line last month spurred by a deluge of complaints regarding wrong particulars shown in passports.
Ahmedabad will be the third RPO in the country to introduce on-line registration of passport applications after Chennai and Bangalore. Authorities are expecting considerable fall in errors pertaining to particulars furnished in passports.
On-line submission of applications will be done prior to physical submission of application forms with all supporting documents at RPO counter. The applicant filing on-line will get a token number which he or she has to submit at the WebWindow for cross verification of particulars filled in the manual format.
Details filled on-line and those submitted in manual format will automatically eliminate chances of wrong spelling and particulars.
Error in spellings are the major complaints RPO receives every year which occur either due to applicant''s own mistake while filling the form or by the staffers at data entry level. RPO is hopeful of cutting down operational delays in issuing passports.
"This will make on-line registration quite effective with correct data entry at the initial stage only," Swain says adding that official on the counter will just have to cross-check the details furnished in the application form and that furnished on-line.
Swain admitted that there was a lot of scope for human errors while feeding the information on computer from what is furnished in an application. On an average around 250 to 300 applications are given to a staffer daily to enter the feed into the system which , authorities feel, was too high.
Any error if done by RPO leads to reprinting of the passport leading to cost overruns. While if applicant has made the mistake, extra fee is charged.
Around 50 per cent of nearly two lakh application submitted annually at RPO are from agents appointed by the RPO.
Moreover, the RPO Ahmedabad has issued over 98,000 passports while it received another 95,000 fresh applications till the end of June. Besides this there is a backlog of another 1.05 lakh passports pending since last one and half years.