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Regional passport office provides tele-registration By Papri Sri Raman, Indo-Asian News Service Chennai, Jan 15 (IANS) No more long queues or wandering from counter to counter like a lost soul -- the regional passport office here is introducing a tele-registration facility from Wednesday. Tele-registration for passport seekers will include telephone number facilities that will provide voice responses, giving the time and date for submitting applications. "It is part of the modernisation process that has been undertaken by the regional passport office," says chief regional passport officer G. Mathivanan. Last year the regional passport office (RPO) in Chennai was provided the Tatkal passport issuing facility, a revamped sitting facility and additional counters to handle large crowds. The centre caters to the four southern states of Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. >From now on people wanting passports can call 28213563 or 28213575, with state and international codes pre-fixed for outstation calls, to fix up appointments with the public relations official. They can also find out details of counter numbers and the time when they have to be present at the RPO to submit the application. This will cut down issuing time by half, say RPO officials. Now passports are issued within 35 days of submitting forms. A reissue is done in 18 days and the Tatkal passport is issued in three days. An electronic scanning facility was introduced at the Chennai office in September 2000 and so far over 35,000 passports with improved security features have been issued by the RPO, Mathivanan said. Records available with the RPO since 1995 are being digitally stored. Nearly one million documents and 400,000 police verifications have been scanned so far and electronically stored. Information on applications will soon be made available through the SMS mobile telephone network, the official said. --Indo-Asian News Service
