The Regional Passport Office (RPO), Coimbatore, which recently won the “Best performing passport office” award for the sixth time, also boasts the lowest processing time – entry to exit - taken for an application in the country.
National average
While the national average of entry to exit time is 52 to 60 minutes per application, it is 20-21 minutes at the Passport Seva Kendra in Coimbatore.
Regional Passport Officer G. Sivakumar said the days taken for police verification for passport have also reduced significantly in six districts coming under the limits of the RPO, Coimbatore, namely Coimbatore, the Nilgiris, Tiruppur, Erode, Salem and Namakkal.
“As in June, the average time taken for the verification process was 7.4 days in the six districts. The use of 'mPassport Police App' has brought down the days taken for police verification,” said he said.
According to Mr. Sivakumar, though the Ministry brought in various relaxations in the application process of passport, applicants still lack awareness on them.
For example, birth certificate is no longer required to apply for passport. Similarly, marriage or divorce certificate and attestation by notary are also not mandatory.
Mr. Sivakumar said that 20 % of the applications received by the RPO were through the four Post Office Passport Seva Kendras (POPSK) functioning at Coonoor, Erode, Salem and Namakkal.
The RPO Coimbatore, which started operations on September 15, 2008, has issued 11,71,536 passports as on June 30, 2019. The highest number of 1,81,684 passports were issued in 2018.
'e-passport' on trial
Mr. Sivakumar said the Government's decision to introduce chip-based e-passport, which could address various possible manipulations of the document, was under trial and was expected to be implemented in six months. With the introduction of e-passport, emigration counters at airports would have a chip reading machine.
Currently, the machine readable zone (MRZ zone) of the passport was read with a machine to check authenticity.