Tougher passport rules for Assam
By a Staff Reporter
In sharp contrast to the Tarun Gogoi Government's claim of restoring peace in the State, the Ministry of External Affairs has included Assam in the list of the States under special watch along with Jammu and Kashmir, Nagaland and Manipur. The passport issuing regulations for Assam have been tightened by the Centre since November 25 last as a precautionary measure 'on the basis of certain intelligence report' following the serial bomb blasts in Bangladesh and New Delhi in October last, the sources said.
GUWAHATI, Jan 8:Including Assam now, a total of four States in the country need the green signal from three competent authorities, including the approval of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to get a passport.
The other required documents are the reports from the Inspector General of Police (SB) and the Subsidiary Intelligence Bureau (SIB). Interestingly, for the rest of the States, including three north-eastern States of Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram, which are under the jurisdiction of the Regional Passport Office (RPO) at Guwahati, only the report from the respective State police is sufficient to get a passport, the sources said.
However, Prabhat Malakar, Regional Passport Officer, said the tatkal seva for issuing passports within 10 days in urgent cases is not hampered by the new directives. "Still, a prior approval from the Ministry of External Affairs to the individual cases has become obligatory under the new rule," he said. Besides, passports under the tatkal seva currently are being issued for a maximum of one year instead of 5 years as before, he added.
In recent times demand for passports from the six north-eastern States including Assam has increased considerably, Malakar said. The reasons include: multinational company's training package in foreign countries, higher education package abroad, cultural exchange programmes, flow of working people in the Middle East and religious pilgrimages including Haj, Vatican City and Buddhist conferences and studying various theological courses, he added.
The increasing demand for passport in the Guwahati regional office is recorded as follows: from 16,313 in 2002 to 20,942 as on November 5, 2005. "We are receiving 100 applications at an average daily and the RPO with its acute shortage of staff is struggling hard to clear the pending cases," Malakar said. According to him, the RPO which is currently working with only 1 super, 2 assistants, 2 UDCs and 4 LDCs, has already written to the ministry to fill up its 10 vacant posts at an early date, he said.
33 District Passport Cells have been established till date to cope with the ever-increasing demand, out of the total 73 district headquarters scattered through the six north-eastern States, he added.
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