Coimbatore Passprot Office Gettng Ready
Regional Passport Officer, Chennai, Sumathi Ravichandran (left), along with Project Director, Ministry of External Affairs, K.N. Sharma (second right), and K. Asokan, Under Secretary from the ministry, on Wednesday inspecting the works for the Coimbatore Passport office. The 12,000 sq ft Passport Office at Coimbatore will be ready before the month end, said Sumathi Ravichandran, Regional Passport Officer (RPO), Chennai, on Wednesday. She, along with the Project Director for the Ministry of External Affairs, K.N. Sharma, Under Secretary at the Chennai Branch Secretariat, Ministry of External Affairs, K. Asokan, R. Balasubramanian, Personal Assistant to the RPO visited the Corporation Shopping Complex on Avanashi Road, near Dhandumariamman Temple, where the passport office had come up on the first floor. Mr. Asokan had been deputed by the Ministry to complete the works and get the office ready for inauguration. He would be in charge of the passport office, Ms. Sumathi Ravichandran said.
The Ministry has deputed one more official from the Regional Passport Office, Chennai, to speed up the work. The Project Director would inform the Ministry and get the date for the inauguration of the passport office soon, she said. The Coimbatore office would have a staff strength of 25 to 30. Salem, Namakkal, Erode, Coimbatore and the Nilgiris districts would be attached to Coimbatore Passport office, while Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri would continue to remain with Chennai. Coimbatore passport office would handle all requests relating to passports, including renewal and tatkal.
Ms. Sumathi Ravichandran said that the normal processing time would be involved and the pace would depend on the police verification procedures. To a query on applicants’ demand drafts getting invalidated on expiry of six months, the RPO said that the applicants could provide a fresh demand draft and their applications would be processed on priority basis. Ms. Sumathi Ravichandran said that the Regional Passport Office was already giving an incentive of Rs. 100 an application if the verification report was received within 20 days of the application date and Rs. 25 for verification reports received after 20 days. In case of emergencies, applicants could convert normal applications to tatkal.
