Agencies
TIRUCHI, June 13,Passport applicants would henceforth be required to pay the passport service fee online at the time of booking appointments for personal appearance at the Passport Seva Kendras (PSKs) in Tiruchi and Thanjavur. Till now, applicants have been paying the prescribed passport service fee at the PSK at the time of their personal appearance.
The new system, introduced by the Ministry of External Affairs, aims at better utilisation of the processing capacity of the PSKs as currently a substantial number of applicants who book appointments online fail to turn up at the scheduled time and date, Regional Passport Officer K. Balamurugan said in a release.
A review of the operations of the PSKs over the past year shows that a large numbers of applicants were not turning up after taking appointment through the online system of filing passport applications. For instance, about 350 appointments were given for personal appearance of the applicants at the Tiruchi PSK for a day. But just about 250 applicants turn up. This has not only resulted in lesser utilisation of processing capacity of the PSK, but also affected genuine applicants who were denied appointment slots.
To resolve the problem, the Ministry had launched the online payment system at the time of booking appointments, he said. |
