NHT

Panaji, Jun 10: The limited staff of the Passport Office in Goa has now also to perform additional work of issuing passport/citizenship surrender certificate to people besides issuing passports and granting miscellaneous service,

as on an average eight Goans have been surrendering their Indian passports every day on having acquired Portuguese nationality and passports.

The Passport Officer, Mr S B Hire, told ‘The Navhind Times’ on Thursday that as per the rule every Indian citizen who acquired foreign citizenship/nationality has to renounce Indian citizenship and surrender passport issued to him or her and obtain surrender certificate.

Mr Hire went on to add that till recently the fees charged for the service was just Rs 300 but has been increased to Rs 5,000 of late. He also said that the service fee for the same in Indian mission abroad was Rs 7,000. He further said that in case the passport was retained for more than three years after acquiring foreign nationality there was a penalty of Rs 10,000.

The Passport Officer further stated that there was a crunch of staff in the Goa Passport Office as more than 100 applications were received from Goans for issue of fresh passports, reissue of passport, etc. Besides around 30 applications were received for miscellaneous services and the staff has to work overtime to issue the passports within the set time frame.

He said that his office had received as many as 14,609 applications for issue of fresh passports, reissue of passport, etc since January 1, 2010 till May 31, 2010 and had issued 14,386 passports during the same period, including some of those received in the previous year which could not be processed for want of police verification certificate and for other reasons.

During the same period 3,034 applications were received for grant of miscellaneous services, said Mr Hire adding that the services were granted to 2,927 applicants. He said that despite staff constraint his officials have worked to ensure that the passport applicants did not suffer.

The Passport Officer, however, lamented the presence of the touts operating just from outside the passport office. He said that these touts not only charge the applicants heavily but also misguide them leading to the applicants having to make frequent trips to correct the anomalies in the applications, which also delayed the issuance of the passports.

He said that though there was a facilitation centre in the passport office the applicants, who turn up early to avail the services, fall prey to the machinations of the touts and end up being misguided and also losing money to them. He also said that most of the applications filled in by the touts had numerous mistakes and that his staff faced horrendous time explaining the same to the applicants and getting them corrected.

He, however, expressed confidence that all these inconveniences would end once the Passport Seva Kendra was established in the state following which all the inconveniences and mistakes would be avoided under the new regime and passports issued to the applicants in just three days.