Amritsar: If External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee is to be believed, passports will be issued within three days - 19 months from now.

Inaugurating the new regional passport office in this Sikh holy city, Mukherjee said passports will be issued in three days time in cases where no police verification is required.

For passports requiring police verification, the new ones will be issued within three days of the exercise being done, the minister added.

Tatkal (immediate) passports will be issued on the day the application is submitted, the minister said.

The new facility, expected to be implemented in 19 months time, will be part of the 'Passport Seva Project' initiated by the external affairs ministry.

"The project is for introducing better and latest IT solutions, further simplification of procedures and reducing paper work to the barest minimum with a view to maximizing the comfort levels of passport applicants and achieving the best international standards," Mukherjee said.

The ministry, under the new project, will outsource non-sovereign functions of the passport issuing process to private service providers at 68 facilitation centres to be opened all over the country.

Mukherjee said that e-passports or biometric passports will roll out for the ordinary passport category by Sept 2009.

 

Source : IANS